
Book Jzf. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE PARTY BATTLES "" 

OF THE 

JACKSON PERIOD 



BY 
CLAUDE G. BOWERS 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

tS^^e 3l^ibergil>e l^xtes Cambribge 
1922 






COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY CLAUDE G. BOWERS 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



c 



O O 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 



NOV 24 1^22 

acUG92052 



THE PARTY BATTLES OF THE 
JACKSON PERIOD 




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PREFACE 

It is the purpose of the author to deal, more minutely than is 
possible in a general history or biography, with the brilliant, 
dramatic, and epochal party battles and the fascinating per- 
sonalities of the eight years of Andrew Jackson's Adminis- 
trations. From the foundation of the Republic to the last 
two years of the Wilson Administration, the Nation has never 
known such party acrimony; nor has there been a period 
when the contending party organizations have been led by 
such extraordinary politicians and orators. It was, in a large 
sense, the beginning of party government as we have come to 
understand it. It was not until the Jacksonian epoch that 
we became a democracy in fact. The selection of Presidents 
then passed from the caucus of the politicians in the capital 
to the plain people of the factories, fields, and marts. The 
enfranchisement of thousands of the poor, previously ex- 
cluded from the franchise, and the advent of the practical 
organization politicians, wrought the change. Our govern- 
ment, as never before, became one of parties, with well-de- 
fined, antagonistic principles and policies. Party discipline 
and continuous propaganda became recognized essentials to 
party success. 

This period witnessed the origin of. modern party methods. 
The spoils system, instead of being a mere manifestation of 
some viciousness in Jackson, grew out of the assumed neces- 
sity for rewarding party service. The recognition of party 
government brought the national convention. The new 
power of the masses necessitated compact and drilled party 
organizations down to the precincts of the most remote sec- 
tions, and even the card-index system known to-day was 
part of the plan of the incomparable politicians of the 



vi PREFACE 

Kitchen Cabinet. The transfer of authority from the sm 

coterie of politicians to the people in the corn rows imposed 
upon the leaders the obligation to furnish the rank and file of 
their followers with political ammunition for the skirmishes 
at the country stores as well as for the heavy engagements 
at the polls, and out of this sprang the intense development 
of the party press, the delivery of congressional speeches for 
"home consumption," the party platform, and the keynote 
speech. 

The triumph of the Jacksonians over the Clays, the Web- 
sters, and the Calhouns was due, in large measure, to their 
development of the first great practical politicians — that 
much-depreciated company sneeringly referred to as the 
Kitchen Cabinet, to whom all politicians since have paid 
the tribute of imitation. 

With the appearance of Democracy in action came some 
evils that have persisted through the succeeding years — the 
penalties of the rule of the people. Demagogy then reared 
its head and licked its tongue. Class consciousness and 
hatreds were awakened. And, on the part of the great cor- 
porations, intimidation, coercion, and the corrupt use of 
money to control elections were contributed. These evils are 
a heritage of the bitter party battles of the Jacksonian period 
— battles as brilliant as they were bitter. / 

The purpose of this volume is to describe these mad party 
struggles, and to picture, as they really were, the great his- 
torical figures, "warts and all." If Henry Clay is here shown 
as an unscrupulous, selfish, scheming politician, rather than 
as the mythical figure who "would rather be right than Pres- 
ident"; if John C. Calhoun is here described as petty in his 
personal hates and spites and in his resentment over the fail- 
ure of personal ambitions; if Daniel Webster, the most ad- 
mirable of the three during these eight vivid years, is set forth, 
not only as the great Nationalist who replied to Hayne and 
sustained Jackson's Nullification Proclamation, but as the 



PREFACE vii 

defender of the Bank from which, at the beginning of the 
fight, he bluntly solicited a "refreshment" of his retainer, it is 
not through any desire to befoul their fame, but to set down 
the truth as irrefutably disclosed in the records, and to 
depict them as they were — intensely human in their moral 
limitations. 

The necessities of history happily call for the featuring of 
some figures, potent in their generation, attractive in their 
genius, and necessarily passed over by historians covering 
much longer periods. No close-up picture of the time can be 
painted that ignores Edward Livingston, patriot and philoso- 
pher; Roger B. Taney, the militant party leader; John For- 
syth, the "greatest debater of his time"; John M. Clayton, 
the real master of both Calhoun and Clay in the Compromise 
of 1833; George McDuffie, the tempestuous Danton of the 
Opposition; Hugh La wson White, the "Cato of the Senate" 
and the Nemesis of Jacksonian Democracy; William Cabell 
Preston and Horace Binney, the polished orators, now almost 
forgotten; Major Lewis, the master of poHtical details; Frank 
Blair, the slashing journalistic champion of the Administra- 
tion; and Amos Kendall, the genius of the Kitchen Cabinet. 

An analysis of motives and methods has led to some un- 
conventional conclusions. Not only do Clay, Webster, and 
Calhoun dwindle in moral grandeur, but others, traditionally 
considered small, loom large. Thus the John Tyler of these 
eight years stands out in intellectual honesty, courage, and 
consistency far beyond others to whom history has been more 
generous. 

No apology need be offered for featuring the personalities 
of the time. They throw light on motives and explain events. 
The episode of Mrs. Eaton changed the current of political 
history. The gossip concerning Mrs. White indicates the 
putridity of political factionalism. The scurrilous biography 
of Van Bniren written by Davie Crockett on the suggestion 
of Senator White is illuminative of the popular prejudices of 



viii PREFACE 

the times; and the solemn investigation of the charge tha 
Senator Poindexter had instigated the attempt upon the Hfe 
of the President at the Capitol discloses the morbidity of the 
partisan madness. Through the gossip of the drawing-rooms, 
the jottings of the diaries, the editorial comments of the con- 
temporary press, the social and political intrigues of women, 
the attempt is made to re-create something of the atmosphere 
by which the remarkable statesmen and politicians of the 
Jackson Administrations were affected. 

Generations have been taught to respect or reverence the 
memories of the extraordinary men of the Thirties who rode 
on the whirlwind to direct the storms; and, their human 
weaknesses forgotten, their sinister, selfish purposes ignored, 
their moral or intellectual limitations overlooked, they seem, 
in the perspective of the years, stern, austere, always sin- 
cere, and singularly free from the vices of politicians, as we 
have come to know them in the leaders of a later day. And 
yet it would be difficult to find creatures more thoroughly 
human than these who are usually presented to us as steel 
engravings, hung high on the wall in a dim light. They move 
across the page of history scarcely touching or suffering the 
contamination of the ground. They seem to play their parts 
upon a stage impressive and imposing, suspended between 
earth and heaven. That they lived in houses, danced, gam- 
bled and drank, flattered and flirted, gossiped and lied, in a 
Washington of unpaved streets and sticky black mud, made 
their way to night conferences through dark, treacherous 
thoroughfares, and played their brilliant parts in a bedrag- 
gled, village-like capital, is not apt to occur to one. Thus, in 
tracing the political drama of this portentous period, an 
attempt is made to facilitate the realization that they were 
flesh and blood, and mere men to their contemporaries, not 
always heroic or even admirable, through the visualization 
of the daily life they lived in a capital peculiarly crude and 
filled with grotesque incongruities. 



PREFACE ix 

No period in American political history is so susceptible to 
dramatization. There is grim tragedy in the baffled ambitions 
of Calhoun and Clay; romance in the rise of Kendall and 
the fall of Mrs. Eaton; rich comedy, when viewed behind the 
scenes, in the lugubrious procession of "distress petitioners" 
trained to tears by the art of Clay and the money of Biddle; 
and rollicking farce in the early morning flight of a dismissed 
Cabinet minister, to escape the apprehended chastisement 
of an erstwhile colleague whose wife's good name had been 
assailed. 

The drama of party politics, with its motives of love, hate, 
and vaulting ambition — such is the unidealized story of the 
epochal period when the iron will of the physically feeble 
Jackson dominated the life of the Nation, and colored the 
politics of the Republic for a century. 

The Drama — its motives — its actors — such the theme 
of this history. 

Claude G. Bowers 



CONTENTS 

I. The Washington of the Thirties 

The journey from Philadelphia — The first railroad — Com- 
munication with the West — First impressions of visitors — 
Hotels — Looking for lions — Trials of calling — Unpaved 
streets — Uncouth appearance of town — Impressions of con- 
temporaries — Surroundings of Capitol — Neighboring quag- 
mires — Cows in the streets — Unlighted thoroughfares — Ad- 
vantages of Georgetown — Drives and walks — Arlington — 
The Tayloe mansion — The Van Ness mansion — Sight-seeing — 
The Capitol's popularity — Society in Senate — In House — In 
Supreme Court — Manner of living — House rent — Servant 
hire — Slaves and Southern masters — Boarding-houses — 
Congressional messes — The Woodbury mess — The law of the 
mess — Popularity of — Adams a diner-out — Hospitality of the 
town — Miss Martineau's triumph — Ignorance of her books — 
Thomas Hamilton's experiences — Literary celebrities — First 
society letters — First Washington correspondents — Crude 
performances in Washington theater — Booth's appearances — 
Fanny Kemble's — Rules and prices in theater — Weather post- 
pones performances — Traveling circuses — The race-course — 
Cockfighting — Gambling — Heavy drinking — Moral laxity 

— A Washington season as a lark — Affectations of fashion — 
Parisian gowns and hats — Leading shops — Daily routine of a 
lady of fashion — Party lines in society — Mrs. Livingston's 
leadership — Mrs. Stevenson — Mrs. Woodbury — Mrs. Forsyth 

— Mrs. Tayloe — Men's styles — Conversational — Formal- 
ity — Pictures of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun in societj' — 
Day of gossip — Of gallantry — Entertainments — Introduc- 
tion of ice-cream — The dances — Dense crowds — Incon- 
gruous dresses — Diplomats set fast pace — Events at Carusi's 

— The quiet Sundays — Unhealthiness — Death-rate — The 
cholera scourge. 

The Rising of the Masses 31 

The scurrility of 1828 — Slander of Jackson and Adams — De- 
mocracy triumphs — Gloom of Whig aristocracy — The faithful 
march on the capital — The throne room at Gadsby's — Jack- 
son receives office-seekers — Politics in Cabinet appointments 

— Calhoun confers on patronage — Jackson ignores Adams — 




*• 



CONTENTS 

King Mob at the inauguration — The reaction on the Cabinet 

— Attempts to conciliate the disappointed — The morbid bit- 
terness of Clay — Miniatures of the Cabinet. 

III. The Red Terror and the White 64 

Party organization and the spoils system — Demands on Jack- 
son for place — The provocation — Jackson's attitude — Van 
Buren's doubts, and Lewis's — Kendall's pain — The harassed 
Cabinet — Ingham and Van Buren angrily rebuke Hoyt — 
Terror of the clerks — The exaggerated impression of the dis- 
missals — The "martyrs" who were also criminals — The 
Senate launches the White Terror — Rejection of the nomina- 
tions of Jackson's newspaper friends — John Tyler's part in it 

— His personal and political character — Type of anti-Jackson 
Democrat — The prejudice against "printers" — The cases of 
Lee, of Noah, of Kendall, and of Hill — Effect on Jackson — 
Hill sent to Senate that rejected him — Unprecedented party 
bitterness foreshadowed. 

IV. Jackson breaks with Calhoun 88 

Political significance of the Jackson-Calhoun quarrel — Calhoun 
turns the corner — His previous political character — Effect 
upon it of the quarrel — Relations of Hayne-Webster debate 
to quarrel — Latter's party character — Jackson's attitude — 
Livingston speaks for Administration — Nullifiers miscalculate 
Jackson — The Jefferson dinner — Its purpose — Jackson ac- 
cepts the challenge — His toast — Effect on Calhoun — Jack- 
son's dinner to Monroe — Learns of Calhoun's hostility 
in Monroe's Cabinet — Crawford's statement to Forsyth — 
Letter of Forsyth is shown Lewis — Jackson hears of it and 
demands it — Jackson calls on Calhoun for explanation — 
Latter's reply — Jackson breaks — Crawford's character and 
career — Calhoun's desperate efforts to extricate himself — 
Appeals to Adams — Latter's notations — Calhoun's pamphlet 

— Newspaper battle — Calhoun's ambitions wrecked. 

V. Mrs. Eaton demolishes the Cabinet 116 

" Peggy " O'Neal — Marriage to Eaton — Society outraged — 
J.Irs. Eaton cut by Cabinet ladies — Jackson's indignation and 
efforts — Van Buren's advantage in the game — He features 
" Peggy " at dinners — Cabinet unable to confer — Van Buren 
proposes resignation — Jackson plans complete reorganization 
of Cabinet — Mrs. Eaton's attitude — Jackson's interview 
with Branch — How new Cabinet was formed — Branch and 



T 
V X. 



CONTENTS xiil 

Berrien place blame on " Peggy " — Mrs. Ingham tarred by 
same brush — Eaton's pursuit of Ingham — Latter's early 
morning flight — Portraits of Livingston, Taney, and Cass — 
A Van Buren Cabinet. 

Kitchen Cabinet Portraits 144 

Dominance of Kitchen Cabinet — Portrait of Amos Kendall — 
Harriet Martineau's impressions — Portrait of Major Lewis — 
Of Isaac Hill — Secret of partisan bitterness — The Marat of 
the Kitchen Cabinet — The establishment of the " Washington 
Globe" — Portrait of Frank Blair — Relations of the "Globe" 
to the President — To the National Democracy — Considered 
the Court Journal by diplomats — Buchanan's experience with 
Nesselrode in Russia — The specialties of the Kitchen Cabinet 
members. 

VII. Clay leads the Party Onslaught 171 

Whigs clamor for Senate leadership — Clay responds — Por- 
trait of Clay the politician — Is nominated for President — 
Doubts success — Hopes to carry Pennsylvania or New York 

— His battery of genius in the Senate — Whig advantage in 
ability in the House — The rejection of Van Buren's nomi- 
nation as Minister to Great Britain — Its motive — Its stu- 
pidity — Flimsy nature of charges — "KUl a Minister to make 
a Vice-President" — Character of John M. Clayton — He 
opens attack on Post-Office Department — His open appeal to 
Calhoun to join Opposition — Clay's tariff plans — Calls con- 
ference at Everett's — His dogmatic manner — Adams unim- 
pressed — Clay's great tariff speech — Tyler's reply — Impres- 
sions of public — Failure to involve Jackson as planned — 
The House battle — The dual reference — Character study of 
Adams — Of George McDuffie — Adams cooperates with Sec- 
retary McLane — Jackson attempts a reconciliation — Cause 
of failure — McDuflSe's bill and report — His slashing attack 
on protection — Adams reports bill based on Treasury report 

— Adams's bill passes House — Amended out of recognition 
by Clay protectionists in Senate — Surrender of Senate con- 
ferees — The politics in it — Clay's fury — He fails to make 
political capital — Tariff eliminated from campaign — Jack- 
sonians take offensive — Embarrass Clay on land question — Po- 
litical effect in new States — Kitchen Cabinet makes headway. 

VIII. Clay finds his Issue 201 

The son of Alexander Hamilton — His intimacy with Jackson — 
Phrases first attack on National Bank — The inspiration of 



xiv COXTEXTS 

Jackson's hostility — Tne Mas^n incident — Biddle's flippant 
reply to Ingham — Kendaiis txiitorial in "Xew York Courier 
and Enquirer" — Biddies alarm — His attempts to conciliate 

— His contradictory ad\-ice and information — The strange at- 
titude of Major Lewis — Clay plans to drag Bank into politics 
for selnsh purposes — Treachery of Li\"ingston and McLane — 
Clay urges immediate application for recharter — His incon- 
sistency — Jackson prefers to postpone Bank issue — Reasons 

— MoLane's embarrassing report — Clay presses the Bank 
to act — Biddle sends agent to Washington to investigate — 
Cadwalader's conferences — Sees selfish political aims of Clay 
and Webster — His conversion to Whig plan — An historical 
conference — Biddle blackmailed into action by threats of Clay 
and Webster — Application presented — The House investi- 
gates the Bank — Results — Political effects — Biddle takes 
charge of fi^t in Congress — Recharter Bill passes — Biddle 
and Clay expect veto — Plan to make Bank the campaign is.sue 

— Effect on Jackson — Authorship of Veto Message — ^"an 
Buren's midnight conference at \Miite House — The Veto as a 
campaign document — Opinion of Biddle — Of Clay's organ — 
Of the "Globe" — Both parties pleased — Senate debate on the 
^ eto — Webster's speech — Arrays Bank against Jackson in 
appeal to the people — Hugh Lawson White accepts the issue — 
Clay's unworthy performance — Benton's reply — Clay and 
Benton exchange the "lie " — The issue goes to the people. 

IX. The DR.^J1ATIC Battle of 1SS£ ^^7 

Xew campaign methods of 1S5€ — Class consooosness anmsed 
by both parties — The intensive use of the press — Biddle sub- 
sidizes newspapers and bribes editors — Kendall's campaign 
textbook — Clay's inti%ues — Negotiates with the Xullifiers — 
Calhoim's strange plan considered — Coalition of Bank. V^tigs, 
and Xullifiers — Blair makes the roost of it — Ties the "V^Tiigs 
to Nullification movement — Jackson defies the XuUifiers — 
Clay intr^iies with Anti-Masons — His letters — Nomination 
of Wirt — Latter's political relations with Clay — The trick 
planned for New York — Seward's testimony — Jacksonians 
ignore the Anti-Masons — The Bank the issue — Clay's cam- 
paign plans — Bank's corruption of the press — Bank nssorts 
to intimidation and coercion — Attempts to frighten the timid 

— CirculatioQ of stories as to Jackson's health — Blair meets 
them — Stories of Jackson's bloodthirstiness revived — The 
anti-Jackson cartoons — Kitchen Cabinet arou^s and or- 
ganiies the masses — Use of the press — Intensive organira- 
tion — Monster meetings of Democrats — A Jackson parade 



CONTENTS XV 

in New York — Hickory poles — Glee clubs — Songs — Dem- 
onstration for Jackson at Lexington — Personalities — Chol- 
era plays a part — The presidential candidates — Jackson's 
confidence — Jacksonians "on the turf" — Notable Jackson 
victory — Ominous action of South Carolina. 

X. The Politics of Nullificatiox 252 

The Nullifiers win in South Carolina — Jackson's fury — 
Hastens to the capital — South Carolina's changed views — 
Calhoun's exposition — Cavalier vs. Cavj-lier — Calhoun's 
letter to Hamilton — Joel Poinsett's part — Jackson energet- 
ically prepares for defense — Steps taken — His reliance on 
public opinion — His caution — His Proclamation — Drama of 
its preparation — Effect on public — Hayne's reply — Clay's 
criticism — He plays to Nullifiers — Effect on State-Rights 
Democrats — Ritchie's straddle in Virginia — Tyler's despair 

— Jackson has Cass prepare appeal to Virginia — Purpose to 
isolate South Carolina — Van Buren's embarrassment — Also 
straddles on Proclamation — Calhoun disappointed with Proc- 
lamation — His "death march" to Washington — Drawing- 
room sympathy for him — Takes the oath as Senator — Jack- 
son-Poinsett corresp>ondence — Jackson asks Congress for addi- 
tional powers — Calhoun's agitation — The Force Bill — Tyler's 
attack — Appeal to Clay — Clay's interest in Tyler's reelec- 
tion — \Miig's ungracious support of Force Bill — Clay- 
ton's speech — Bitterness of debate — Poindexter and Grundy 

— Jackson clears decks for action — Webster asked to lead 
debate for Administration — Livingston's call upon him — 
Calhoun's speech — Webster's reply — His relations with 
^Miite House — Jackson's delight — Jacksonian cultivation of 
Webster — Calhoun concerned — Whig, Bank, and Nullifica- 
tion combmation — Dangers to the tariff — Clayton's proposal 
to Clay — The politics in Compromise Tariff of 1833 — Calhoun 
hears from Jackson — Clay's Tariff Bill — Tyler's delight — 
Jackson's disgust over the unholy alliance — Clay's frankness 

— Force Bill passes — Clayton whips Calhoun — Effect of 
Cass's letter to Virginia — Nullification Ordinance rescinded — 
Political effects of fight — The drama of the last night of the 
session. 

XI. Jackson vs. Biddle 287 

Cabinet reorganization — Duane becomes Secretary of Treas- 
ury — His reputation and party standing — Jackson's New 
England tour — Plans removal of deposits — Consults Hamil- 



xvi CONTENTS 

ton in New York — Conversion of Van Buren — The Bank's 
cockiness over accession of NuUifiers — Blair makes the most of 
the coalition — Kendall's reasons for immediate action — Con- 
servatives of Cabinet alarmed — Kendall attempts to convince 
McLane — Van Buren rebuked by Kendall — Jackson polls the 
Cabinet — Kitchen Cabinet's continuous sessions — Debate on 
the time for removal — Kitchen Cabinet favors recess action 

— Conservatives would postpone until Congress meets — 
Duane's strange reticence — Jackson presses him for decision — 
Kendall's mission — His experiences with politicians en route — 
Newspapers open fight — Jackson perfects his plans at Rip Raps 

— Van Buren hard pressed — Taney moves to Jackson's side — 
Jackson's Paper to the Cabinet — McLane and Cass threaten 
to resign — Benton's delight — Duane's many letters of pro- 
test — Is dismissed — Taney assumes command — Webster 
advises a "disciplining" of the people — The Bank plans a 
panic — Its methods and results — Clay advises distress meet- 
ings and petitions — Political purpose — Jackson and distress 
committees — Reaction against Bank — New leaders — Ben- 
ton — Preston — Leigh. 

XII. The Battle of the Gods 322 

Bitter battle in Congress — Clay leads onslaught — Calls for 
Paper read to Cabinet — Forsyth kills the effect — Senate 
rejects Government directors on Biddle's demand — Webster 
reminds Biddle of his retainer — Attempt to exclude Lewis 
from Senate — Webster appeals to Story for opinion — Lat- 
ter 's reply — Clay appeals to Tazewell — Is rebuked — In- 
tense interest in congressional battle — Distress oratory — 
Forsyth's cynicism — Jacksonians counter with memorials — 
Whig mob-baiters sent to country to continue the excitement — 
Clay's censure resolution — His bitter speech — Speeches of 
Preston, Benton, Calhoun, Forsyth, and Webster, — Clay's mo- 
tive — Webster's disgust over Clay's plan — Proposes com- 
promise recharter plan — His speech — Calhoun presents 
another — Bank champions divided — Clay's fury over Web- 
ster's independent action — Forces Webster to kill his own bill 

— Forsyth makes the record clear — Clay's attempt to in- 
volve Van Buren — His histrionic appeal — Van Buren makes 
it ridiculous — Censure passed — Jackson's spirited Protest — 
Effect on masses — Reception in Senate — Forsyth's clever 
move to pass the issue to the people — Protest rejected — 
Battle in the House — Adams's activities — Horace Binney — 
The debate — Blair's attack on Judge Hopkinson — Bank 
investigation ordered — Farcical nature — Clay's resolution 



CONTENTS xvii 

orders restoration of deposits — Debate — Senate rejects nomi- 
nations of Stevenson and Taney. 

XIII. Political Hydrophobia 354 

Whigs determine to win in New York City election — Lewis's 
advice to Hamilton — Mayoralty nominees make Bank the 
issue — Mixed result — Whig celebration at Castle Garden 

— Democrats celebrate inauguration of anti-Bank mayor — 
The fall elections — The Whigs take their name — Forsyth's 
sharp comment — The hotch-potch combination — Jackson 
visits the Hermitage — His confidence — Cabinet changes — 
Whigs impatient of Bank issue — Biddle's indignation — 
Jackson's triumph in New Jersey — Whigs redouble efforts in 
New York — Liberty poles — Mobs in Philadelphia — The Vir- 
ginia campaign — Leigh reelected through a betrayal — Effect 

— Poindexter defeated in Mississippi — Whigs accept result as 
defeat — Weed dumps the Bank — Webster abandons it — 
Clay tired of its troubles — Effect on politics of Bank fight — 
Bitter congressional session of December, 1834 — Attacks on 
Post-Office Department — Instructions from legislatures to 
expunge censure — Effect on Whigs — Post-OfBce scandal — 
Kendall made Postmaster-General — What he found, and 
did — Mrs. Eaton tries a bribe — Attempt to assassinate Jack- 
son — Poindexter accused — His character and career — His 
quarrel with Jackson — Demands an investigation — Is ex- 
onerated — Calhoun's fight on Federal patronage — Its politi- 
cal purpose — Debate — Democrats celebrate wiping out of 
national debt — Whig Senators refuse to buy paintings for 
President's house. 

XIV. Whig Disloyalty in the French Crisis 386 

The French indemnity treaty — French indifference to the ob- 
ligation — Jackson determines to enforce treaty — Portrait of 
John Forsyth — Livingston sent to Paris — Real cause of diffi- 
culty there — Chamber again fails to appropriate — King sends 
regrets and assurances — Chamber again fails — Livingston ad- 
vises show of spirit in Presidential Message — Jackson's Message 
■ — Whig embarrassment, and criticism — Message reaches Paris 

— Livingston presents copy to de Rigny — King recalls French 
Minister — Livingston's tact — Whigs plan to isolate Jackson 

— Whig papers apologize to France — Foreign Relations 
Committee of Senate packed against Jackson — Blair's protest 

— Clay's report — Circulated as political document to isolate 
the President — Clay suggests France may ask apology from i 



xviii CONTENTS 



.« 



Jackson — Buchanan explains the Paris state of mind — De- 
fends Message — Senate passes Clay's resolution — "Intelli- 
gencer" calls it to attention of France — Livingston's spirited 
reply to de Rigny — Approved by Jackson, Van Buren, and 
Forsyth — Serurier refused audience by Forsyth — War clouds 
lower ■ — Strange happenings in French Legation — House con- 
siders crisis — Adams's attitude — Pays tribute to Jackson's 
spirit — The amazing debate — Adams protests against trib- 
utes to France — Amendment to Fortifications Bill — Whig 
filibuster against it — The Nation naked to its foe — The Whig 
jubilation — French Chamber authorizes payment conditional 
on an apology from Jackson — Livingston leaves Paris — Mrs. 
Barton and Madame Pageot — Livingston's tumultuous ova- 
tions in New York — Forsyth's instructions to Barton — Dip- 
lomatic relations broken — "Oil or water?" — Livingston 
advises moderate tone for Message — The Message — Public 
indignation over failure of Fortifications Bill — Blair fans the 
flame — Approach of French squadron — Webster defends 
Senate and attacks House — Adams and Webster — Adams's 
spectacular reply — Democrats follow Adams's lead — English 
offer of mediation — Terms of acceptance — France recedes — 
Jackson's triumph — Effect on America's prestige in world. 

XV. The Battle of the Succession 423 

Van Buren the heir apparent — Senator White's disaffection — 
Whig plan to use him — Clay's plan of campaign — Whig sneers 
at Mrs. White — Blair's rebuke — The schism of Tennessee 
Democrats — Polk leads for Van Buren — White wins — 
Portrait of White — Kitchen Cabinet's attack on him — Also 
determines to retire Bell from Speakership — "Globe's" attacks 
on latter — Baltimore Convention — New York and Virginia 
combination broken — Van Buren's reconciliation visit to 
Castle Hill — Whig confusion — Clay sulks — His complaint — 
Slavery question in campaign — Attempts to turn slave States 
against Van Buren — Davy Crockett's biography of Van 
Buren — Holland's — Adams's comment — Van Buren's seren- 
ity — Congress convenes — Bell defeated — Van Buren's tooth- 
ache — Whig fight on Taney — Whig Senators harassed by 
instructions from home — The embarrassment of Virginia 
Whigs — Ritchie's mirth — Calhoun's fight against abolition 
literature in mail — Purpose to embarrass Van Buren — Latter's 
friends "play politics" — Calhoun's extreme bill — Its partisan 
motive — Tie votes — Van Buren does not dodge — Calhoun's 
bitter reference to Jackson — White's bitter attack — Cal- 
houn's insult to Van Buren — Congress adjourns — Issues of 



CONTENTS xix 

1836 — Adams's contempt for all the candidates — Enthusiasm 
for Jackson continues — Whig depression — Newspaper battles 

— Clay's sulking — His one speech — Jackson's electioneering 

— White's campaign speech — Results of election — Their sig- 
nificance. 

XVI. Twilight Triumphs * 457 

Jackson's illness — Whigs attack him while down — He fights 
back — House Whigs' last effort against Whitney — Jacksoni- 
ans turn the tables — Threats of murder — Peyton and Wise — 
Benton plans to expunge — His speech — Bitter replies — The 
conference at Boulanger's — Refreshments in Benton's com- 
mittee room — Clay's theatrical speech — Scenes in Senate 
Chamber — Webster's protest — Benton wins — Dramatic sit- 
uation — The mob in the gallery — Benton's friends arm — • 
Mrs. Benton's alarm — The Clay -Benton altercation — Jack- 
son dines his friends — Last days in White House — His Fare- 
. well Address — Its real significance — His last reception — 
Jackson the Man — White House memories and women — The 
inauguration of Van Buren — Jackson the central figure — 
Homage of the multitude — Last night in the White House — 
The last conference at Blair's — The end of the " Reign." 

Books, Papers, and Manuscripts cited and con- 
sulted 481 

Index 489 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Andrew Jackson Steel engraving frontispiece 

From a painting by Ralph ElarL 

Martin Van Buren 54 

From a photograph by Brady in the collection of Mr. Frederick Hill 
Meserve. 

Thomas Hart Benton 54 

From a photograph by Brady in the collection of Mr. Frederick Hill 

Meserve. 

Mrs. John H. Eaton (Peggy O'Neal) 118 

From a photograph by Brady. 

Edward Livingston 134 

From the bust by Ball Hughes. 

Amos Kendall 144 

From an engraving in the Democratic Review, 1838. 

Francis P. Blair 162 

From an engraving by Sartain in the Democratic Review, 1845, after a 
painting by T. Sully. 

Roger B. Taney 162 

From a photograph in the collection of Mr. Frederick Hill Meserve. 

William B. Lewis 162 

From a photograph reproduced in S. G. Heiskell'a Andrew Jackson and 
Early Tennessee History 

John C. Calhoun 172 

From an engraving in the Democratic Review, 1843, after a miniature by 
Blanchard. 

Henry Clay 172 

From the portrait by Marchant in the State Department, Washington. 

Daniel Webster 172 

From the collection of Mr. Frederick Hill Meserve. 

Nicholas Biddle 212 

From a painting by Thomas Sully. 

John Forsyth 386 

From a lithograph, by courtesy of Mr. Waddy B. Wood, of Washing- 
ton, D.C. 



THE PARTY BATTLES 

OF THE 

JACKSON PERIOD 

CHAPTER I 
THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 

The tourist traveling from Philadelphia to Washington in 
the Thirties anticipated few pleasures and no comforts from 
the trip that had to be made by coach from Baltimore, over 
roads intolerably wretched under the best conditions, and 
all but impassable and not without dangers in inclement 
weather. The journey from Philadelphia to Baltimore was 
usually made by boat through the Chesapeake and Delaware 
Canal, and the entire trip, in winter one of exposure, required 
the greater part of two days.^ The fare from Baltimore to 
Washington was four dollars. Sometimes the ruts in the 
winter roads would overturn the coach, throwing the passen- 
gers into the mire, and occasionally resulting in sprains and 
broken bones. ^ Later in Jackson's time, the Baltimore & 
Ohio Railroad was built, with a branch into Washington, and 
when the first cars, drawn by horses, reached the country- 
town capital, the enthusiastic statesmen felt that the prob- 
lem of transportation had been solved. Urging Butler to 
accept the attorney -generalship, and stressing the fact that 
acceptance would not preclude his appearance in personal 
cases in New York and Albany, Van Buren made much of the 
fact that "to the former place you will next season be able to 

^ Life of Binney, 104. 

2 Benton's explanation of the delay of the Bank messenger with the petition for a 
recharter. Thirty Years' Vieip. 



2 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

go in fifteen hours, and to the latter in a day and a night.'* * 
Blair, of the "Globe," boasted after the election of 1832 that 
"in eight days and nights after the closing of the polls in 
Ohio, the result was known in the city of Washington from 
all the organized counties except three." This, he declared, 
"is an instance of rapid communication from the West un- 
paralleled in this country." ^ 

The foreigner, expecting a national capital more or less 
pretentious and compact, was invariably shocked on entering 
the environs over miserable mud roads, to find only an occa- 
sional drab hut or cottage at wide intervals. Usually, until 
the Capitol attracted his attention, he was wholly uncon- 
scious of his arrival at his destination. One of these, who has 
left a record of his visit, relates that he was "looking from the 
window of his coach in a sort of brown study, at fields covered 
with snow," when a fellow passenger startled him with the 
inquiry as to how he liked W^ashington. 

"I will tell you when I see it," he replied. 

"Why, you have been in Washington the last quarter of 
an hour," was the rejoinder.' 

Another famous visitor "was taken by surprise" on finding 
herself within the shadow of the hall of the lawmakers, "so 
sordid are the enclosures and houses on its very verge." * 

But as the coach wound round the Capitol, and swung 
with a merry clatter into Pennsylvania Avenue, the houses 
at more frequent intervals and connected shops disclosed 
the town. With a characteristic "clatter and clamp," ^ 
with a gay cracking of whips, the coach would splash and 
rumble up to one of the leading hotels, and the cramped 
and weary tourist would joyously take leave of the convey- 
ance and seek lodgment within. 

^ Van Buren to Butler, Retrospect of Forty Years, by Butler, 39-43. 

2 Washington Globe, Nov. 17, 1832. 

^ Thomas Hamilton, Afen and Manners in America, 14. 

* Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel, i, 143. 

' Retrospect of Forty Years, 47. 



THE WASHI ^, TON OF THE THIRTIES 3 

ON'; 

If well advised, he . M instruct the coachman to drop 
him at G?"dsby's, the| ^he most popular and comfortable 
hostelry in town, on tli^ Avenue, a short distance from the 
Capitol.^ There he would find, not only a clean bed, but 
excellent service and a lordly hospitality from the host. 
Gadsby, for his generation, was a genius at his trade. He 
moved his small army of negro servants with military pre- 
cision. "Who that ever knew the hospitalities of this gentle- 
manly and most liberal Boniface," wrote one who enjoyed 
them, "can ever forget his urbane manner, his careful atten- 
tion to his guests, his well-ordered house, his fine old wines, 
and the princely manner in which he could send his bottle 
of choice Madeira to some old friend or favored guest at the 
table .'^"^ It was not alwavs, however, that accommodations 
could be found at Gadsby 's, and then the tourist would seek 
the Indian Queen at the sign of the luridly painted picture of 
Pocahontas, where he would be met at the curb by Jesse 
Brown, the landlord.' Here, for a dollar and a quarter a day, 
he could not only find a pleasant room, but a table loaded 
with decanters of brandy, rum, gin, at short intervals from 
the head to the foot. If the host of the Indian Queen lacked 
the lordly elegance of Gadsby, he made up for it in the 
homely virtues of hospitality. Wearing a large white apron, 
he met his guests at the door of the dining-room, and then 
hastened to the head of the table where he personally carved 
and helped to serve the principal dish.^ If this, too, was 
crowded, the tourist would try Fuller's near the White 
House,^ where a room would be found for him either in the 
hotel proper, or in one of the two or three houses adjoining, 
which had been converted into an annex. ^ 

Having rested from his journey and removed the stains of 
travel, if he were a person of some importance, and especially 

^ The present site of the National Hotel. * Perleijs Reminiscences, i, 43. 

* Sargent's Public Men and Events, i, 53-54. * Present site of the Willard. 
' On the site of the present Metropolitan. • Retrospect of Forty Years, 48. 



4 PARTY BATTLES OF TUE^ '^CKSON PERIOD 

a foreigner, he would be speedily o^^ "ed with the cards of 
/ callers anxious to make his sojourn^ easant. Day by day\ 
/ the hotel registers were eagerly' scanned for the names of ; 
I visiting celebrities, for the Yvashington of the Thirties loved ' 
V. its lions and lionesses. No possible person was ever neglected, 
and real personages were feted, wined, and dined. But not 
until he set forth to return the calls would he appreciate the 
Portuguese Minister's description of the capital as " a city of 
magnificent distances." Inquiring at the hotel how to reach 
the residences of his callers, he would be not a little puzzled 
at the nonchalant reply that the coachmen "knew where all 
the prominent people live." Engaging a coach, he would set 
forth gayly, in the confident expectation of leaving his card 
at from thirty to forty houses in the course of the day. A 
short drive would take him to the end of the macadamized 
pavement of the Avenue, and thereafter for hours, pitching 
and plunging, over the ruts and the mud-holes, through 
miry lanes, and across vacant lots, shaken in body, and sore 
in spirit, he would find by evening that he had reached six or 
seven of the forty houses, and was charged by the coachman 
at a rate " which would keep a chariot and two posters for 
twice the time in London."^ In the course of a week he would 
find that he had spent as much as thirty dollars for coach 
hire — by odds, the most expensive feature of his Washing- 
ton sojourn. An English visitor, startled at the cost of travel, 
contracted with a coachman for services from five o'clock to 
daylight for twenty dollars, but after having attended five 
parties on the first evening, the morose driver repudiated his 
contract, and it was necessary to add five dollars to retain 
his services. 2 "I should imagine [Washington] to be the very 
paradise of hackney coachmen," wrote one disgusted visitor. 
*'If these men do not get rich it must be owing to some 
culpable extravagance, for their vehicles are in continual 

^ N. P. Willis, American Scenery, iii, 49. 
* Men and Manners in America, 20, note. 



/ THE WASB LtON OF THE THIRTIES 5 

fimand from the hf^ If dinner ^ till five in the morning, and 
png distances and lwoi|7 charges are all in their favor." ^ 
/ As the visitor din jfcbout the town he found nothing in 
the physical aspect^W the country-town capital to indicate 
that L 'Enfant ever had a vision or produced a plan for a city 
beautiful. Because real estate dealers had quarreled over the 
location of public buildings, the selection of the hill for the 
Capitol had led to the location of the White House a mile or 
more to the west, and for three decades the problem of build- 
ing a compact city between the two had failed. The streets 
were all unpaved when Jackson was first inaugurated, and 
only Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the 
President's Mansion had been rescued from the mire when he 
left office. Hub-deep in mud in inclement weather, these 
country roads sent forth great clouds of dust on dry and 
sunny days. With the exception of the Avenue, not a single 
street approached compactness, the houses on all other streets 
being occasionally grouped, but generally widely separated, 
and in some instances so much so as to suggest country houses 
with their shade trees and vegetable gardens.' "It looks as if 
it had rained naked buildings upon an open plain, and every 
man had made a street in reference to his own door,'* wrote 
Nathaniel P. Willis, who knew his Washington.* Another 
writer of the day who was impressed with "the houses 
scattered in straggling groups, three in one quarter, and half 
a dozen in another," was moved to compassion for "some 
disconsolate dwelling, the first or last born of a square or 
crescent, yet in nebulous suffering like an ancient maiden in 
the mournful solitude of single blessedness." ^ Still another 
contemporary word painter tells us that even on the Avenue 
"the buildings were standing with wide spaces between, like 
the teeth of some superannuated crone." ^ 

1 Four o'clock. 2 Men and Manners, 20. 

' Frederick Seward's Reminiscences, 17-19. * American Scenery, iii, 49. 
6 Men and Manners, 17. c Public Men and Events, i, 54. 



6 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JJIcIkSON PERIOD 

At the foot of the Capitol, itself be»ti|ful even then, were 
desolate waste lands being reserved fJrIome ultimate Bo- 
tanical Gardens, and a few miserable snack-like boarding- 
houses.^ "Everybody knows that Washington has a eapitol,'* 
wrote a satirical English observer, "but the misfortune is 
that the eapitol wants a city. There it stands, reminding you 
of a general without an army, only surrounded and followed 
by a parcel of ragged little dirty boys; for such is the appear- 
ance of the dirty, straggling, ill-built houses which lie at the 
foot of it." ^ Where the Smithsonian Institution has long 
stood were innumerable quagmires reeking with miasma.' 
About the President's Mansion, a few pretentious houses, 
several still handsome homes after almost a century, had 
been built, and in this section, and in Georgetown, lived the 
people of fashion and the diplomats. "The Co't end," it 
was called. At the four corners of the Mansion of the Presi- 
dents stood the plain brick buildings occupied by the State, 
Treasury, War, and Navy Departments. On Capitol Hill 
a few good houses had been erected, especially on North A 
and New Jersey Avenue, South. Other than these, and those 
west of the White House, there was little but pastures and 
enclosed fields in the eastern, southeastern, and northeastern 
sections of the town.^ East of Fourteenth Street, on the 
north side, but few houses had been built beyond F Street, 
and the "country home" of William H. Crawford, at the 
northeast corner of Fourteenth Street and Massachusetts 
Avenue, was still considered as remote from town as on that 
winter day after his defeat for the Presidency when no callers 
were expected because of the heavy snow.^ 

Looking down upon the little town from the skylight of the 
Capitol, Harriet Martineau could plainly discern the "seven 
theoretical avenues," but with the exception of Pennsyl- 

^ American Scenery, ii, 55. ^ Captain Marryat, A Diary in America, 163. 

^ Piihlic Men and Events, i, 55. * Public Men and Events, i, 5i. 
' Life of Crawford. 183. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 7 

vania, all were "bare and forlorn," and the city which has 
become one of the most beautiful and impressive in the 
world could then present to the naked eye only "a few mean 
houses dotted about, the sheds of the navy yard on one bank 
of the Potomac, and three or four villas on the other." ^ 
With the streets full of ruts, the sidewalks dotted with pools 
of muddy water, or in places overgrown with grass, with 
cows pasturing on many of the streets now lined with elegant 
homes, and challenging the right of way with Marshall or 
Clay or Jackson, it is not surprising that foreigners, even as 
late as the Thirties, were moved to imitate the sarcasm of 
Tom Moore. The difficulties of locomotion kept the pedes- 
trian's eyes upon the ground, and the inconveniences, in 
making calls, of crossing ditches and stiles, and walking 
alternately upon grass and pavement, and striking across 
fields to reach a street, were more noticeable than the noble 
trees that lined the avenues. ^ Wretched enough in the day- 
time, the poorly lighted streets at night were utterly impos- 
sible. "As for lights," wrote a contemporary, "if the pedes- 
trian did not provide and carry his own, he was in danger 
of discovering every mud-hole and sounding its depths." ' 
More nearly possible to the fastidious were the narrower 
streets of Georgetown, with its more imposing and interesting 
houses, and more select society, where many of the statesmen 
lived, and not a few of the Government clerks, who rode 
horseback to the departments in the morning. 

Even in the Thirties there were many beautiful drives and 
walks in the vicinity of Washington, and a few houses that 
v.^re impressive to even the most critical English visitor. 
Visible for many miles, and easily seen from the town, loomed 
the pillared white mansion of Arlington, then the home of 
George Washington Custis, to which many of the aristocrats 
of the capital frequently found their way. There, during the 

» Retrospect of Western Travel, i, 160. * Ibid., i, 144. 

' Public Men and Events, i, 54. 



8 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Jacksonian period, Robert E. Lee, standing in the room, 
whence, across the river, he could see the Capitol building, 
was united in marriage to the daughter of the house. ^ Within 
the city the most imposing mansions were those of John 
Tayloe, at Eighteenth Street and New York Avenue, de- 
signed by Thornton, and even then rich in political and social 
memories,^ and the handsome residence of John Van Ness, 
the work of Latrobe, built at a cost of sixty thousand dollars 
to make a fit setting for the charm and beauty of Marcia 
Burns, at the foot of Seventeenth Street, on the banks of 
the Potomac. From the doorstep the master and his guests 
could watch the ships from across the sea mooring to the 
docks of Alexandria, and the merchantmen, bound for the 
port of Georgetown, laden with the riches of the West Indies. 
The tourist in the Washington of the Thirties did not have 
the opportunity for sight-seeing that means so much to the 
capital visitor of to-day. Aside from the Capitol and the 
W^hite House, there were no public buildings of architectural 
distinction. The churches had "nothing about them to 
attract attention," and while St. John's on Lafayette 
Square was then summoning to worship, it did not at that 
time have the virtue of quaintness or the mellowness of 
historical memories. A visit to the Patent Office was cus- 
tomarily made, and most tourists found something to interest 
them in the museum of the State Department, with its por- 
traits of the Indian chiefs who had visited Washington.^ 
Occasionally the venturesome would ascend to the skylight 
of the Capitol to survey the straggling and dreary town from 
the height.* But always there was the dignified and stately 
white building of the lawmakers and of the Supreme Court, 

^ Godfrey T. Vigne, in Six Months in America, thought that "in the distance" 
Arlington "has the appearance of a superior English country residence." 

'^ The Octagon House still standing and being preserved by the Institute of Amer- 
ican Architects. 

^ Men and Manners, 75. 

* Miss Martineau tells of visits to the museum and the skylight, i, 159. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 9 

and thither tourists and citizens, men and women, daily 
found their way for the entertainment that never failed. 
Surrounded by its terraces, its well-kept lawns, its profusion 
of shrubbery, the visitor reached the entrance over its "beau- 
tifully gravelled walks," ^ and entered the rotunda with its 
four Trumbull paintings of Revolutionary scenes, to be more 
impressed with the vacant spaces for four more, and the 
explanation that "Congress cannot decide on what artist to 
confer the honor." ^ He would not fail to be delighted with 
the classic little Senate Chamber, redolent of the genius of 
Latrobe, and with the ease with which he might ignore the 
tiny gallery to find a hearty welcome on the floor. If a for- 
eigner, he would be surprised to find a constant stream of 
fashionable ladies entering the chamber, crowding the Sena- 
tors, accepting their seats, and attracting attention with 
their "waving plumes glittering with all the colors of the 
rainbow, and causing no little bustle." ^ There he would see^ 
Van Buren or Calhoun in the chair, and on the floor he would 
want to have Webster, Clay, Benton, Forsyth, Preston, and 
Ewing pointed out. And perhaps, like Miss Martineau, he 
would leave with the impression that he had "seen no as- 
sembly of chosen men and no company of the high born, 
invested with the antique dignities of an antique realm, half 
so imposing to the imagination as this collection of stout- 
souled, full-grown, original men brought together on the 
ground of their supposed suflSciency, to work out the will of 
their diverse constituencies." ^ 

Having seen the Senate, he would seek the House of 
Representatives. Inquiring his way to the Strangers' Gallery 
from the rotunda, he would be directed to a narrow stairs, 
and, on ascending, would find himself in a large room of many 
columns, the work of the architect of the Senate, looking 

1 William H. Seward's Autobiography, i, 277. ^ Ibid. 

3 Miss Martineau comments severely upon the levity of the women, i, 180. 

* Retrospect of Western Travel, i, 179. 



10 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

down upon the seats of members arranged in concentric 
rows. Thence he would look down upon the bald head of the 
venerable Adams, the anaemic figure of Polk, the handsome 
form of Binney, and the ludicrous conglomeration of garbs 
representing the diverse tastes of the tailors of New York and 
the wilderness. If acquainted with one of the members, the 
visitor might be invited to the corridor behind the Speaker's 
desk, fitted with seats and sofas drawn about the fireplace 
at either end, where members and their guests were wont 
to lounge and smoke. ^ Having satisfied himself with the 
chambers of the lawmakers, the visitor would want to see 
the tribunal of interpretation, said by some to have more 
power in determining the law of the land than the mem- 
bers of Congress, and to observe the famous Marshall on the 
Supreme Bench. Descending to the basement of the Capitol, 
immediately under the Senate, he would be shown into a 
small plain room with low ceiling, and "a certain cellar-like 
aspect which is not pleasant," ^ and would probably be a 
little shocked at the figure of Justice, "a wooden figure with 
the eyes unfilleted, and grasping the scales like a groceress." ' 
On cushioned sofas, on either side of the room, he might, if a 
favorite orator were making an argument, see gayly dressed 
ladies — for, like the Senate Chamber, the court was one of 
the fashionable resorts of the Thirties. But there, he would 
find dignity and quiet and decorum, in striking contrast with 
most of the American courts of that generation.^ If fortu- 
nate, he might listen to the reading of a decision by Marshall, 
and observe Butler, the Attorney-General, "his fingers play- 
ing among his papers, his thick black eyes and thin, tremu- 
lous lips for once fixed, his small face pale with thought," 

^ Men and Manners, 16. ^ Jbid^^ 65. 

^ Six Months in America, 64. 

* Both Hamilton (Men and Manners) and Vigne, the English barrister {Six 
Months in America) , were shocked at the utter lack of respect for the dignity of 
American courts, but were impressed with the solenmity and decorum in the 
Supreme Court. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 11 

contrasting with the more composed countenances of Clay 
and Webster.^ 

In the days of Jackson, comparatively few families had a 
permanent residence in Washington, and to an EngHsh 
visitor the town had the appearance of a watering-place. ^ 
Many Senators and Representatives considered it so im- 
possible that they left their families at home.^ Attorney- 
General Butler at first refused to consider a position in the 
Cabinet because "Mrs. Butler did not like the idea of bring- 
ing her daughters up here." * When the wives and daughters 
did accompany the statesmen to the capital, it was the cus- 
tom, with such as could afford to maintain an estabhshment, 
to take a house. These usually purchased, albeit many of the 
more desirable residences that could be leased were not for 
sale. An establishment could be maintained at a surprisingly 
low cost. Houses "suitable for the purposes of genteel peo- 
ple" could be had for from $50 to $300 a year, and even 
the large mansions, many of them standing and still occupied 
by fashionable families after almost a century, could be had 
for from $500 to $800 a year.^ The servant problem did not 
exist, for domestics could be employed in abundance for $4 a 
month.^ The Southerners, bringing their slaves with them, or 
buying them in the slave market at Alexandria, were able to 
entertain with a lavish display which set the pace socially, 
and made the Southern dominance easy. Foreigners were 
impressed, after hearing a senatorial orator rhapsodize in the 
Senate over the blessings of American liberty, to see him 
driven from the Capitol after his oration by one of his family 
slaves.' Others, not wishing to be burdened with a house, 

1 Retrospect of Western Travel, i, 165. * Men and Manners, 21. 

' Senator Tazewell of Virginia was one of these. 

* Van Buren to Butler, Retrospect of Forty Years, 39-43. 

^ National Intelligencer, Jan. 30, 1831, advertised a house in Georgetown on Gay 
Street, "convenient for the accommodation of a genteel family, having all necessary 
outhouses, stabling, etc.," for $300 a year payable quarterly. 

* Public Men and Events, i, 55. 

'' Hamilton, in Men and Manners, comments severely upon this incongruity. 



12 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

lived in the hotels, where other people's slaves waited upon 
them. In these, too, the cost of living was low, the leading 
hostelries taking guests at $1.75 a day, $10 a week, or $35 a 
month. Transients sat down to tables fairly groaning with 
food, and with decanters of brandy and whiskey at their 
elbows, free at these prices. The guest, in his room, could 
order real Madeira for $3 a bottle, sherry, brandy, and gin 
for $1.50, and Jamaica rum for $1. The statesman, leaving 
his hotel quarters for the Senate or the House, could, if he 
wished, pause at the bar of the hostelry for a toddy of un- 
adulterated liquor and lump sugar for twelve and a half 
cents. ^ But the greater part of the public men lived in 
boarding-houses, and the "Intelligencer," the "Globe," and 
the "Telegraph" filled columns, at the beginning of con- 
gressional sessions, with the enticing advertisements of the 
landladies. Some few of these houses, such as Dawson's, 
associated with celebrities, live in history, but the majority 
were small, shabby, and uncomfortable. In these, however, 
romances sometimes blossomed, and the barmaid of one pre- 
sided for a time over the establishment of a Cabinet member, 
and the landlady of another over the household of a Senator 
who aspired to the Presidency.* 

Out of this life in hotels and boarding-houses, during the 
Jacksonian period, came the custom of statesmen forming 
themselves and families into "messes," each "mess" having 
a table to itself and contracting with the landlady or landlord 
for a caterer. In this way the lawgivers were socially grouped 
according to their intellectual and financial standing, and 
some of these "messes" were famous in their day. Friend- 
ships were formed that survived all the vicissitudes of time 
and political change. One of these, known as the "Woodbury 
mess," consisted of such a notable coterie of brilliancy and 
genius as Calhoun, John Randolph, Tazewell, Burges, and 

1 Perleij's Reminiscences, i, 143. 

2 Peggy Eaton and Mrs. Hugh Lawson White. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 13 

Verplanck. About the table many celebrated measures were 
conceived and the strategy of many a fight was planned.^ 
According to the law of the "mess" a member might invite 
a guest only with the consent of all the others, and it was 
understood that a failure to get unanimous consent should 
not be resented. Occasionally the guests were permitted to 
contribute something to the usual outlay. Daniel Webster 
was glad enough to pay his way on such occasions. The 
venerable Adams, who had a comfortable home on F Street ^ 
and was not considered a notably social animal, delighted to 
join his most interesting colleagues at the boarding-house or 
hotel table. "I dined with John C. Calhoun at Dawson's," 
he recorded. "Mr. Preston, the other Senator from South 
Carolina, and his wife were there, and Mangum, Southard, 
Sprague of Maine. Company sat late at table and the con- 
versation was chiefly upon politics. The company was, at 
this time, adversaries of the present Administration — most 
of them were adversaries to the last." ^ Three days later: 
*' Dined with Benj. Gorham and Edward Everett. Calhoun, 
Preston, Clay, and others were there." '' The next evening: 
"Dined with Colonel Robert B. Campbell of S.C. at his 
lodgings at Gadsby's"; thirty people, including Calhoun 
and Preston, in attendance.^ 

It was inevitable that in a little city of twenty thousand, 
consisting in part of the cleverest men and women in the 
Republic, and devoted wholly to politics and society, cele- 
brated sojourners should be feted and lionized. Foreigners 
v'isiting America in the Thirties, and recording their impres- 
:sions, have all paid tribute to the hospitality and brilliance 
of the capital, as compared with other and larger cities. The 
most famous of the visitors was Harriet Martineau, who ar- 
rived in the summer of 1834, in her thirty-second year, and 

^ Retrospect of Forty Years, 59. 

* Near Fourteenth Street on the north side of the street. 
' Adams's Memoirs, March 8, 1834. 

* Ibid., March 11, 1834. » Ibid.. March 12. 1834. 



14 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

in the full flush of her literary fame. Introduced to the Presi- 
dent and the Senate leaders by the British Minister, it was 
the rumor at the time that six hundred people called upon 
her the day after her arrival.^ "The drollest part of the 
whole," wrote a lady of fashion, "is that these crowds, at 
least in Washington, go to see the lion and nothing else. I 
have not met with an individual, except Mrs. Seaton and her 
mother, 2 who have read any of her works, or know for what 
she is celebrated. Our most fashionable exclusive,^ Mrs. 
Tayloe, said she intended to call, and asked what were the 
novels she had written, and if they were pretty. The gentle- 
men laugh at a woman's writing on political economy. Not 
one of them has the least idea of her work." ^ But the fluency 
of the lioness captivated the men. Among her constant vis- 
itors were Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Preston, and Justice 
Story. When she entered the Senate Chamber or the Su- 
preme Court room, the leading men of the Nation left their 
seats to pay her homage. Calhoun's "mess" gave her a 
dinner. Clay insisted that at Lexington she should occupy 
his house at Ashland, and that she should be the guest of his 
daughter in New Orleans. Calhoun assured her triumph in 
Charleston through letters to his friends. "No stranger 
except Lafayette ever received such universal and marked 
testimonies of regard," wrote a sympathetic observer of her 
reception.^ WTien Thomas Hamilton, the English writer, 
author of "Men and Manners in America," reached Washing- 
ton, a member of Congress escorted him, uninvited, to a ball 
on the evening of his arrival, with the assurance that the "in- 

' Mrs. Margaret Bayard Smith, who recorded it in First Forty Years of American 
Society, Jan. 12, 1835, thought it exaggerated. 

* Mrs. Seaton, wife of the editor of the Intelligencer. 

' Mrs. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe lived in the house still standing on Lafayette 
Square, known in recent years as "The Little White House." She was a famou.s 
hostess. President W. H. Harrison contracted the cold that killed him while walk- 
ing through the slush from the White House to the Tayloes' to offer a diplomatic 
po.st to the master of the hou.se. 

* First Forty Years, 356, » Ibid., 368. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 15 

tnision would be welcome." After passing "through a for- 
midable array of introductions to distinguished persons, and 
after four hours of almost unbroken conversation, much of 
which could not be carried on without considerable expendi- 
ture of thought," the weary tourist, at three o'clock in the 
. .rning, rejoiced to find himself "stretched in a comfortable 
^ed at Gadsby's." ^ The experiences of Hamilton and Miss 
Martineau were not exceptional. 

Nor were American literary celebrities left in doubt as to 
the cordiality of their welcome in the best social circles of the 
capital. The winter of 1833 found Washington Irving in 
W^ashington, where he was not unfamiliar with the leading 
houses, living "in the neighborhood of the McLanes" and 
making "use of a quiet corner and a little interval of leisure 
to exercise a long neglected pen." ^ Despite the flood of 
invitations, he found time to report to Van Buren the attitude 
of McLane, and the hostilities, in select circles, to Kendall. 
"Washington Irving is here now," wrote John Tyler to his 
daughter. "He stands at the head of our literati. His pro- 
ductions are numerous and well spoken of in Europe." ' 
Nor did society in those days lack their chronicler, for the 
first society letters from Washington were those of Nathaniel 
P. Willis written for the "New York Mirror." At that time 
he was "a foppish, slender young man, with a profusion of 
curly light hair, and was always dressed in the height of 
fashion." ^ The doors of the most exclusive homes were 
thrown open to this elegant youth, who, having traveled in' 
Europe, affected a contempt for the masses. He became the 
faithful Pepys of the period, describing society people and 
events with liveliness and fancy, and imparting a strange 
interest to the most insignificant occurrences through the art 
of the telling. It was during this period, too, that the political 

^ Men and Manners, 17. 

* Irving to Van Buren, Van Buren's Autobiography, 610. 

* Letters and Times. * Perky' s Reminiscences, i, 107. 



16 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

letters of Washington correspondents were introduced into 
American journalism. Matthew L. Davis, famous as the 
"Genevese Traveller" of the London "Times," and as the 
capital correspondent of the "New York Courier and En- 
quirer," was for years the confidant and companion of Sena- 
tors, Justices, and Presidents. And James Gordon Bennett, 
young and clever, appeared upon the scene to give a new and 
spicy touch to reporting with his Walpolean letters of wit, 
sarcasm, and personalities, for the New York paper of Jamess 
Watson Webb. Along with the democratization of politics 
in the Thirties went a popularization of the methods of the 
press. 

The amusements of the Washington of this time were, for 
the most part, crude. The theater featured players scarcely\ 
celebrated in their own day, and most of the plays presented 
have happily been long since forgotten. Even these were 
interspersed with songs and farce acts. In 1820 the Washingy 
ton Theater had been built, and hither, at long intervals, 
came celebrated artists, but they came "like angels, few and 
far between." From his rustic retreat in Maryland the elder 
Booth, half mad, all genius, occasionally emerged to curdle 
the blood of the statesmen and their families with his intense 
interpretations of the Shakesperian tragedies. From a Booth 
night Jackson was seldom absent. But of all the artists who 
played in the capital none created such a furor as Fanny 
Kemble. The elder statesmen were captivated by her art 
and charm. John Marshall and Justice Story were regular 
attendants, and the Chief Justice was lustily cheered as he 
entered the box. When she played Mrs. Haller in "The 
Stranger," and the audience was moved to tears, "the Chief 
Justice shed them in common with the younger eyes," ^ 
Inspiring audiences — those of the Thirties, with Marshall, 
Jackson, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun in the boxes or the pit. 
Great, not only in genius, but in their fresh capacity to enjoy, 

, 1 Story to Sarah Waldo Story, Life and Letters oj Slory, ii, 117. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 17 

and when one of the most learned Justices of the Supreme 
Court could be moved to poesy in paying tribute to an 
actress's art.^ 

But even with a Kemble playing, the haughty Httle 
country capital refused to abandon its parties, and we have 
the record of a New Yorker finding "Fanny Kemble in the 
Washington Theater like a canary bird in a mouse trap," 
leaving the theater in the midst of a performance to attend 
*'a delightful party at Mrs. Tayloe's," where he "met many 
distinguished people and all the Washington belles." ^ In 
those days the theater-goer purchased his tickets between 
ten and one o'clock, and the doors were thrown open at six, 
with the curtain rising promptly at seven. For the usual 
performances the boxes were seventy-five cents, the pit 
twenty-five. When the rain converted the streets into rib- 
bons of sticky black mud, or the bitter cold made an invi- 
tation to the people from the "magnificent distances" un- 
profitable, the papers would announce a postponement, with 
an explanation.^ The pleasure-seekers were not restricted, 
however, to the players of the Washington Theater, and 
occasionally a show would appear advertising "the Great 

* Story wrote the following lines to Miss Kemble: 

"Genius and taste and feeling all combine 
To make each province of the drama thine. 
She first to Fancy's bright creation gives 
The very form and soul; it breathes — it lives. 
She next with grace inimitable plays 
In every gesture, action, tone and gaze. 
The last to nature lends its subtlest art 
And warms and wins and thrills and melts the heart. 
Go, lovely woman, go. Enjoy thy fame. 
A second Kemble with a deathless name." 

{Lije and Letters oj Story, n, 117.) 
' Hone's Diary, March 3, 1834. 

' "The public is most respectfully informed that, in consequence of the weather, 
the performance advertised for Thursday is postponed until Saturday evening, 
September 17th, 1831." {National Intelligencer. Sept. 17, 1831.) "The Tyrolese 
Minstrels have to announce that, in consequence of the severity of the weather, 
their concert which was advertised for Saturday will be deferred until Monday 
evening." (Zftid., Dec. 19, 1831.), 



18 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Anaconda of Java," and the "Boa Constrictor of Ceylon," 
both "so docile that the most timid lady or child may view 
them with safety and pleasure." ^ Such were the amuse- 
ments offered for the entertainment of Jackson, Webster, 
Marshall, Calhoun, and Clay. 

But for the men there were other forms of amusement, 
popular in their day. The racing on the National Course 
near the city made it difficult to maintain a quorum in Con- 
gress, and the statesmen mounted their horses to ride to the 
track to cheer their favorites and to bet their money. Even 
the President entered his horses and lost heavily on his wagers. 
There Jackson and a goodly portion of the Cabinet, and a 
formidable sprinkling of the leaders of the Opposition from 
Clay to Letcher, might be seen backing their judgment as to 
horseflesh with their purses. And when it was not horse- 
racing, it was cockfighting, with the President entering his 
own birds from the Hermitage, and riding with his friends to 
Bladensburg to witness the humiliation of his entries. It was 
a day of gambling, when statesmen, whose names children are 
now taught to reverence, played for heavy stakes for days 
and nights at a time, with Clay and Poindexter losing for- 
tunes, and an occasional victim of the lure blowing out his 
brains. While most of the celebrities played in private houses, 
they could, if they preferred, find the notorious gambling- 
houses along the Avenue. Along with racing, cockfighting, 
and gambling went heavy drinking. "Since I have been 
here," wrote Horace Binney, after two years in Congress, 
"one man, an habitual drunkard, blew out his brains; two 
have died notorious drunkards, and one of them shamefully 
immoral. The honors are given to all, with equal eulogy and 
ceremonial." 2 The statesman of the Thirties who did not 
drink heavily was a rarity. Just as whiskey, brandy, gin, and 
wine were served in great decanters on the tables at hotels, 
"at the boarding-houses every guest had his bottle or interest 

* Advertisement in the Globe. * Life of Binney, 127. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 19 

in a bottle," ^ On the way to the Capitol, the statesman 
could quench his thirst at numerous bars — and often did. 
And in the basement of the Capitol building whiskey could 
be had. Never in American history have so many promising 
careers been wrecked by drunkenness as during the third 
decade. Frequently national celebrities would appear upon 
the floor of the House or Senate in a state of intoxication, 
and on at least one occasion the greater part of the house was 
hilariously drunk. ^ Thus, despite the miry streets, the drab- 
ness and rusticity, the Washington of the Jacksonian period 
was easily the gayest, the most brilliant and dissipated com- 
munity in the country. A penetrating observer found, in its 
recklessness and extravagance, a striking similarity to the 
spirit of the eighteenth century in England, as portrayed 
in Thackeray's "Humorists," with "laxity of morals and the 
coolest disregard possible." ^ Its superior social charm was 
due to the fact that it was "the only place in the Union 
where people consider it necessary to be agreeable — where 
pleasing, as in the Old World, becomes a sort of business, and 
the enjoyments of social intercourse enter into the habitual 
calculations of every one." ^ A goodly portion of the women 
of good society, and other sojourners, were apt to contem- 
plate a Washington season as "a sort of annual lark," which 
offered the most promising solution of the problem of a weary 
winter in the country. W'illis explained the attractions of the 
country capital on the ground that "the great deficiency in 
all our cities, the company of highly cultivated and superior 
men, is here supplied." ^ Even the supercilious and scolding 
Captain Marryat of England found it "an agreeable city, 
full of pleasant, clever people, who come here to amuse and 
be amused," and he observed "much more usage du monde 
and Continental ease than in any other parts of the States." ^ 

^ Quincy's Figures of the Past. 

^ This charge was made on the floor by Henry A. Wise. 

^ Perley's Reminiscences, i, 120. * Men and Manners, 20. 

* American Scenery, ii, 50. * Diary in America, 163, 



20 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

After spending several crowded weeks in the social and 
political heart of the town, Harriet Martineau concluded 
that, while life there would be "dreary" to women who loved 
domesticity, "persons who love dissipation, who love to 
watch the game of politics, and those who make a study of 
strong minds under strong excitement, like a season in 
Washington." ^ Ludicrous as it was in its incongruities, the 
little city bravely assumed the pose of a real capital, plumed 
itself on the superiority of its society, and made much of the 
fashions. At the crowded receptions the wondering visitor 
might very easily be jostled against Webster or Sam Hous- 
ton, dandies like Willis or frontiersmen in boots and soiled 
linen, flirtatious belles and matrons, beauties and beasts. 
But there were many leaders of fashion who imitated the 
frivolities of European capitals, ordered their dresses from 
Paris or London, and regularly summoned coiffeurs to their 
homes to dress their hair for balls and receptions.^ When Con- 
gress was in session fashionable women from every section 
flocked to the seat of government bringing their daughters 
for a Washington season. One of the resident society leaders, 
commenting on their coming, dolefully complained that they 
were "coming in such ton and expensive fashions, that the 
poor citizens cannot pretend to vie with them and absolutely 
shrink into insignificance." ^ The shops made much of their 
Paris finery. Mrs. Coursault announced "to the ladies of the 
metropolis that she has just returned from Paris with a most 
splendid assortment of millinery and goods, to be seen at the 
store of Mrs. Lamplier on the Avenue."^ Mr. Palmieri ad- 
vertised that he had "just received from Paris an elegant 
assortment of caps and pelerines direct from Mademoiselle 

* RetTo.ipect of Western Travel, i, 143. 

* A. Lafore, a coifTeur from Paris, had his establishment at Mrs. Doynes's milh*- 
ncry store on the Avenue between Ninth and Tenth Streets, and advertised his skill 
in the local papers. National Intelligencer, Jan. 1, 1831. 

8 First Forfi/ Years, Jan. 2G, 1830. 

* National Intelligencer, Jan. 2, 1831. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 21 

Minette's, the first Milliner of Paris, and a beautiful as- 
sortment of satin shoes." ^ Another announced "French 
dresses for balls," and still another, " the arrival from Paris 
of an elegant assortment of French jewelry," 

The daily life of the fashionable ladies of the time began 
with breakfast at nine, when they amused themselves by 
comparing the conflicting descriptions of scenes they had 
witnessed the day before in the "Intelligencer" and the 
"Globe." By eleven they were apt to be on their way to the 
Capitol to enliven the solemnity of the Senate Chamber or 
the Supreme Court, unless a neglected call, an appointment 
with an artist, or an excursion interfered. Dinner was served 
from four to six, and soon afterwards milady retired to her 
boudoir to dress for some ball, rout, levee, or masquerade. 
Long drives through the mud — late hours with the breaking 
dawn greeting her return — and the weary lady would relax 
and warm awhile at the drawing-room fire before retiring for 
the night. ^ Contrary to the popular belief, there was much 
social brilliance during the Jackson Administrations. Nor is 
the prevailing impression that all the elegance, cleverness, 
and charm was confined to the drawing-rooms of the Whig 
aristocracy borne out by the facts. In truth, among the 
women of the Jacksonian circle there were two or three who 
were easily superior to the best the Whigs could offer, in 
intellect, culture, and beauty. Such was the bigotry of the 
times that there was a tendency for society to segregate into 
camps, but it was impossible to draw the party line on a 
number of the fascinating and brilliant women who presided 
over the households of Jacksonian Senators and Cabinet 
Ministers. While the Whigs generally remained severely 
aloof from the house of the President, they were unable to 
resist the invitations of the President's friends. 

1 National Intelligencer, Feb. 16, 1831. 

^ Miss Martineau thus describes the life of a lady of fashion. Retrospect of Western 
Travel, i, 145. 



22 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Among all the women of the period none approached Mrs. 
Edward Livingston in brilliance, charm, and elegance, nor 
did any of the ladies of the Whig circle, not even Mrs. Tay- 
loe, who wondered if Miss Martineau's novels were "pretty," 
approach her in the lavishness and taste of her dinners and 
parties. "Mrs. Livingston takes the lead in the fashionable 
world," wrote Mrs. Smith, who found it hard to concede the 
virtues of the Jacksonians.^ "I know that Mr. Livingston 
gives elegant dinners and his wines are the best in the city," 
recorded a press correspondent of the time.^ "We dined by 
invitation with Mr. Secretary Livingston," wrote Justice 
Story, an enemy of the Jacksonians. " The dinner was superb 
and unequalled by anything I have seen in Washington 
except at some of the foreign ministers', and was served 
exclusively in the French style." ^ This captivating woman, 
of French descent, had known a childhood of romance in a 
marble palace by the sea in St. Domingo, had miraculously 
escaped the servile insurrection, and reached New Orleans 
to become the wife of Livingston. Wonderfully vivacious, 
eloquent in conversation, intelligently interested in politics, 
steeped in the literature of the ages, witty and spirited, her 
home in Lafayette Square more nearly resembled a salon than 
anything the capital has ever known. Even the most bigoted 
Whigs of the day were glad to lay aside their partisanship at 
her threshold, and leaders, still flushed with a verbal duel in 
the Senate, smiled amicably upon each other in her drawing- 
room. Here one might meet John Marshall, Joseph Story, 
and Bushrod Washington of the Supreme Court, Webster, 
Clay, Calhoun, Wirt, or Randolph. About her, too, she 
gathered a coterie of cultured women, and Mrs. John Quincy 
Adams and Mrs. Andrew Stevenson came and went in the 
house on the Square with as little ceremony as members of 

1 First Forty Years, Nov. 7, 1831. 

* Quoted by Ellet in Court Circles of the Republic, 1G3 n. 

» Letter to Mrs. Sarah Waldo Story, Life and Letters of Story, u, 117. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 23 

the household. The charm of the house was enhanced by the 
exquisite Cora, the daughter, who reigned as the belle and 
toast of the town until her marriage, captivating, among 
others, the impressionable young Josiah Quincy, who thought 
her "undoubtedly the greatest belle in the U.S.," and, if not 
"transcendently handsome," possessed of a "fine figure, a 
pretty face." Finding it "the height of the ton to be her 
admirer," the young Bostonian followed the fashion with all 
his heart. ^ 

Intimately identified with Mrs. Livingston was Mrs. 
Stevenson, to whom the years had been kind since the days 
when, as Sally Coles, she was a protegee of Dolly Madison. ^ 
At this time she was the wife of the Jacksonian Speaker of the 
House, soon to become the hostess of the American Legation 
in London, and to witness, in that role, the coronation of 
Victoria. Strikingly handsome, tall and commanding, she 
resembled her friend in an ineffable graciousness of manner 
and an extraordinary conversational ability. Among the 
most famous hostesses of the Jacksonian circle were Mrs. 
Louis McLane, " a gay, frank, communicative woman " 
whose "self-complacence is united with so much good humor 
in others that it is not offensive," who gave popular weekly 
dinners and parties; ^ Mrs. Levi Woodbury, beautiful of form 
and feature, who resembled Dolly Madison in her suavity, 
ease of manner, and infinite tact, and presided over her many 
dinners and dances with dignity and grace, and made a 
practice of featuring the most dashing belles of Baltimore, 
Alexandria, and Georgetown; ^ and Mrs. John Forsyth, more 
conventional and retiring than the others, but yielding to 
none in culture and elegance, and having a certain advan- 
tage in her "group of graces." ^ Among the hostesses of the 

1 Figures of the Past. " Mrs. Wharton's Social Life of the Republic, 139, 179. 

» First Forty Years, Aug. 29, 1831. 
* Ellet's Court Circles of the Republic, 226. 

^ A poet describing one of the Adams parties referred to " Forsyth with her group 
of graces" — her beautiful daughters. 



24 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Opposition, Mrs. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, a woman of grace 
and beauty, but lacking in the intellectual sparkle of Mrs. 
Livingston, maintained the most elegant establishment. 

But these were only the most brilliant leaders, for the 
Jacksonian period was one of hectic social activity, with 
foreign ministers and Cabinet members entertaining con- 
stantly and lavishly, and the official underlings desperately 
bent on a ruinous and riotous imitation. It was a day of 
much pretense and pose, of ceremonious intercourse, and it 
was not easy to determine from the swallow-tails and the 
buff waistcoats whether the wearer were a Senator or a clerk. ^ 
It was a conversational period, and seldom has the American 
capital contained at one time so many excellent talkers. Nor 
was the talk mere chat and gossip. Even the women, espe- 
cially from the South, were clever conversationalists, able 
keenly to discuss the politics of the day and the measures of 
the hour. 2 Even the busiest and greatest party leaders had 
the time and inclination for calls on bright women when they 
could enjoy the Johnsonian luxury of having their talk out. 
We have a picture of Clay "sitting upright on the sofa, with 
a snuff box ever in his hand," discoursing "for many hours 
in his even, soft, deliberative tone" ; of Webster, " leaning back 
at his ease, telling stories, cracking jokes, shaking the sofa 
with burst after burst of laughter, or smoothly discoursing to 
the perfect felicity of the logical part of one's constitution"; 
of Calhoun, the "cast iron man," who "looked as if he had 
never been born," no longer capable of mental relaxation, 
meeting men and haranguing them by the fireside as in the 
Senate; of Justice Story, talking gushingly for hours, "his 
face all the while, notwithstanding his gray hair, showing 
all the nobility and ingenuousness of a child's." ^ The talk 

* Retrospect of Forty Years, CO. 

^ Quinoy, in Figures of the Past, was thus impressed, particularly with the daugl:- 
ter of Calhoun. 

» These ricscriptions of Miss Martineau's are in harmony with those that sprinkle 
the pages of Mrs. Smith's work. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 25 

about the firesides and at the receptions, that were given over 
entirely to conversation, was by no means confined to art, 
eloquence, and poetry, for the Mother Grundys of gossip 
were numerous among the women seeking to amuse and be 
amused. There were personalities as well as personages in 
the years that Jackson directed a triumphant party and Clay 
led a brilliant and militant opposition. ^ The little town of 
twenty thousand was not so large that the ladies could not 
know, from observation or deduction, when Adams dined 
with Calhoun, when Webster called on Mrs. Livingston, 
and what Mrs. Tayloe served her guests at her last re- 
ception. 

"Did you have candied oranges at Mrs. Woodbury's?" 
asked a lady who had dined with Mrs. Cass, of a friend who 
had dined with the wife of the Secretary of the Navy. 
"No." 

"Then they had candied oranges at the Attorney-Gen- 
eral's," was the deduction. 
"How do you know?" 

"Oh, as we were on the way, I saw a dish carried; and as 
we had none at Cass's, I knew they were either for the Wood- 
burys or the Attorney-General's." ^ 

It was the golden age of gallantry as well as gossip, some 
flirtatious, some courtly. If the admirer of John Forsyth's 
daughter proposed in a Valentine Day verse ^ throbbing with 
adolescent passion, the more staid and sober-minded Fran- 
cis Scott Key wrote, in a fine hand, religious hymns for the 
pleasure of her mother.^ 

The evening parties were the most popular form of enter- 
tainment, and the hostesses of the Cabinet circle set the pace. 
The invitations were sent out nine days in advance. Because 

1 Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years, Miss Martineau's Retrosj)€ct of Western Travel, 
and Adams's Diary all indicate a gossipy city. 

2 Retrospect of Western Travel, i, 152. 

3 The original from " Alphonse" in possession of Waddy Wood, Washington, D.C. 
* This, too, in the possession of Waddy Wood. 



26 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

of the exigencies of politics, and the exactions of an awakened 
"Democracy," these could be neither small nor exclusive in 
character, and from seven to nine hundred invitations were 
usually extended. Between nine and ten o'clock all the apart- 
ments would be thrown open. The muddy streets in front 
would be congested with carriages. The host and hostess, 
standing in the drawing-room, would receive their guests, and 
then the more serious would withdraw to quiet corners for 
conversation, the gay and frivolous would swing into the 
dance, and the devotees of chance would seek and find a re- 
mote corner for cards. Servants would gingerly thread their 
way through the throng with light refreshments until eleven 
o'clock when an elaborate supper would be served. By three 
o'clock the company would begin to retire, and usually, at 
daybreak, the lights would be extinguished.^ 

It was a day of social novelties. Ice-cream as a refreshment 
first made its appearance in the country capital at the home 
of the widow of Alexander Hamilton. Introduced at the 
White House immediately afterwards by Jackson, it took 
society by storm, ^ and Kincliy, the confectioner on the 
Avenue, who had a monopoly on ice-cream and ices, became 
as indispensable socially as the chef and the fiddler. ^ Of the 
dances, the most popular was the waltz, introduced two 
years before Jackson's inauguration, and, considered at first 
of questionable modesty, it soon won its way, and the ma- 
trons found it as alluring as the debutantes. Even then there 
were censorious people to see in the dreamy ghde an example 
of the moral degeneracy of the age.^ To accentuate their 
pessimism, the crowds were invariably so dense that the 
dancers could scarcely move, reminding an amused Ken- 
tuckian "of a Kentucky fight when the crowd draws the 
circle so close that the combatants have no room to use their 

* Court Circles of the Republic, 180. 

2 Pcrley's Reminiscences, i, KJS. » Retrospect of Forty Years, 60. 

* Mary C. Crawford, Romanlic Days of the Early Republic, i07. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 27 

limbs." But despite the crowded quarters, the twenty-four 
fiddlers in a row bravely sought " by dint of loud music to put 
the amateurs in motion," until they jumped "up and down 
in a hole, and nobody sees more of them than their heads." ^ 
Queer, conglomerate crowds packed the balls and receptions 
of men in public life, forced to accept official society as they 
found it, and if members of Congress appeared at the dance 
in their morning habiliments and in unpolished boots, in 
worsted stockings and in garments fashioned by a backwoods 
tailor, they were not conspicuous.^ All, or most, entered with 
zest into the social activities of the time. On the night of a 
big ball "the rolling of carriages sounded like continual peals 
of thunder, or roaring of the wind." In the dark, dismal 
streets, the lamps on the vehicles alone were visible, and 
these, moving rapidly in the blackness, "appeared like bril- 
liant meteors in the air." ' Sometimes, in the case of the 
more pretentious entertainers, like the foreign ministers, the 
streets in front of the houses were light as day from the line 
of flaming torches along the pavement. Fox, the British Min- 
ister, a relative of the great orator; Baron von Roenne, the 
Prussian, a brilliant jurist and publicist; and Baron Bodisco, 
the Russian, made great displays of equipages and appoint-r 
ments, and were noted for their wines and exotic entertain- 
ments. At the legations of Fox and Bodisco, great sums 
passed over the card table, the most famous statesmen of the 
time among the players, and the British Minister so seldom 
saw the sun that on the occasion of a funeral, while seated 
beside the wife of the Spanish Minister, he turned a puzzled 
look upon her with the comment, "How strange we all look 
by daylight ! " Both ministers contributed not a little to the 
gayety of gossip, Bodisco, by his squat ugliness an(^ courtli- 

^ Francis Blair's description, quoted in Rufus Rockwell Wilson's Washington, the 
Capital City. 

* Hamilton, in Men and Manners, describes such garb at a ball given by the 
French Minister to the members of Congress. 

» First Forty Years, Jan. 1, 1829. 



28 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ness, and Fox, by his whimsical refusal at dinners to go to 
the table until the dishes had cooled.^ During the period the 
most celebrated functions were given at Carusi's Assembly 
rooms which could accommodate great numbers. Leaders of 
fashion and the socially ambitious of Baltimore and Alex- 
andria, wishing to make an impression in introducing a 
debutante or to repay social obligations, found these rooms 
suited to their purpose. It was in these rooms that Washing- 
ton society had its first presentation of the "Barber of Se- 
ville," and "John of Paris" in the winter of 1833.2 xhe same 
year a Washington birthday party was given there, both 
rooms thrown open, "decorated and illuminated and with a 
band in each," and diplomats admitted without an entrance 
fee.^ Hither all the ladies of the capital, unfamiliar with the 
dances, or wishing to learn new ones, found their way to 
learn from the popular Louis, only the inclemency of the 
weather and the impossible mire of the streets interfering 
with his profits.* Thus the fashionables of the Thirties man- 
aged to create the illusion of living in the great world, chatter- 
ing in the Senate, bustling into the Supreme Court chamber, 
dining, dancing, flirting, gossiping, attending the theater to 
see a Booth or a Kemble, going to the circus to see the animals 
fed at eight o'clock, "in the presence of the audience," ^ or 
riding to the National Course near town to witness the races, 
or attending an exhibit of the paintings of John G. Chapman 

* Butler, in his Retrospect of Forty Years', refers to this peculiarity of Fox's (p. 61), 
and Bodisco, who gave the most brilliant dinners and dances, figured in the cele- 
brated marriage to a girl of seventeen during Van Buren's Administration. 

* Washington Globe, Feb. 1, 1833, announces these operas with Miss Hughes and 
Mrs. Anderson in leading r61es. 

' Advertisement in Washington Globe. 

* Announcing the opening of a spring school, and commenting on the general pref- 
erence for the spring over the winter term, Carusi, in the Globe of Jan. 3, 1831, ex- 
plained the disadvantages of the winter term to be "the disagreeable and long 
walks . . . the frequent inclemency of the weather, and the liability of sickness from 
exposure." 

' Advertisement of Birchard & Company's Shows, Washington Globe, June 13, 
1833. 



THE WASHINGTON OF THE THIRTIES 29 

on the Avenue.^ Only on Sundays did the capital become 
quiet and sedate, for, after a pious morning pilgrimage to 
church, the ladies carrying a hymn or a prayer book and 
leaning on the arms of their escorts, they retired to the seclu- 
sion of their homes and the streets were deserted or given 
over to the promenades of the colored folks. ^ 

In this Washington, where men were feverishly fighting for 
place and prestige, and women were engaged in a hectic 
struggle for social leadership, Death lurked always, for a less 
healthful spot could not easily have been found. Built orig- 
inally in a swamp reeking with malaria, surrounded with 
morasses, and with not a few of these in the heart of the town, 
with sanitation poor and water wretched, the residents were 
constantly menaced by disease. With the gradual disappear- 
ance of the forests immediately surrounding it, the condi- 
tions became worse. The death-rate was as high as one in 
fifty-three, with August claiming the heaviest toll from 
fevers.^ Between the fevers of the summers and the influenza 
of the winters, the residents had to be constantly on guard. 
Whiskey and quinine were taken with the regularity of bread 
and meat, and tourists were wont to sit late at their quarters 
"sipping gently a medicine which the doctors of the capital 
thought destructive of the influenza germs which were lying 
in wait for the unwary." ^ Fevers, pneumonia, influenza, and 
the cholera made the swampy capital of the Thirties as 
profitable to the doctors as to the coachmen. 

Such, in brief, was the scene of the most dramatic and sig- 
nificant political battles that were staged in America between 
the foundation of the Republic and the Administration of 
Woodrow Wilson. Such was the day-by-day life of the men, 

^ Chapman had not then been given the contract for the historical paintings in 
the Capitol, rotunda, and exhibited fifty paintings on Pennsylvania Avenue, near 
Fourth Street, in the winter of 1833, charging twenty-five cents for admission and 
a catalogue. His advertisement in the Globe, Jan. 21. 

^ Retrospect of Forty Years. 
, • Six Months in America, 101. * Figures of the Past. 



so PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

now steel engravings, who played the leading roles. And by- 
bearing in mind the sordidness and pettiness of the environ- 
ment, and of the men and women with whom they daily 
and nightly gossiped and dined and danced, it may be less 
of a shock to discover, in the unfolding of the story of these 
eight crowded years, that even the greatest were men of 
moral weaknesses and limitations. 



CHAPTER n 

THE RISING OF THE MASSES 
I 

With the election of 1828 a new era dawned in American 
politics. Up to this time the election of Presidents and the 
determination of policies had been a matter of manipulation 
among the congressional politicians. The possessors of 
property and the aristocrats of intellect had been the only 
classes with whom the politicians had concerned themselves. 
The Virginia Dynasty and the Secretarial Succession died 
on the day that the rising of the masses raised to the Presi- 
dency a man who had never served in the Cabinet, distin- 
guished himself in the Congress, or appealed to the ** aris- 
tocracy of intellect and culture." To the politicians, office- 
holders, and society leaders in Washington, the election of 
Andrew Jackson was something more than a shock — it was 
an affront. In the campaign he had been opposed by two 
thirds of the newspapers, four fifths of the preachers, practi- 
cally all the manufacturers, and seven eighths of the banking 
capital. Respectability sternly set itself against the pre- 
sumptuous ambitions of what it conceived to be a rough, 
illiterate representative of the "mob." 

Four years before, the stage had been set for a bjtter battle. 
The election of Adams, through the support of Clay> followed 
by the appointment of the latter to the first place in the 
Cabinet, had carried the suspicion of a bargain, and this sus- 
picion had crystallized into a firm conviction with a large 
portion of the people. Throughout the Adams Administra- 
tion, its enemies — and they were legion — harped con- 
stantly upon the "bargain," angering the crabbed Adams, 
and stinging Clay to furious denunciation, and this but 
served to intensify the bitterness of their foes. 



32 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

The result was the most scurrilous campaign of viliiScation 
the country had known. A new school of politicians, fore- 
runners of the astute and none too scrupulous managers of 
later days, sprang up to direct the fight for the grim old 
warrior of the Hermitage, and the fact that Clay took per- 
sonal charge of the campaign for Adams was turned with 
telling force against his chief. Early in the campaign we find 
the satirical and caustic Isaac Hill, of the "New Hampshire 
Patriot," of whom we shall hear much, writing that "Clay is 
managing Adams's campaign, not like a statesman of the 
Cabinet, but like a shyster, pettifogging in a bastard suit 
before a country squire." And lest the motive for Clay's 
interest escape his readers, we find Hill writing again: "This 
is Mr. Clay's fight. The country has him on trial for bribery, 
and having no defense, he accuses the prosecutor." 

This reference to the accusation of the prosecutor was 
inspired by the outrageous calumny that was heaped upon 
the head of Jackson. He was pictured as a usurper, an adul- 
terer, a gambler, a cockfighter, a brawler, a drunkard, and 
a murderer. The good name of Mrs. Jackson, one of the 
purest of women, was wantonly maligned; and in the draw- 
ing-rooms of the intellectually elect she was not spared by the 
ladies who were shocked at the "vulgarity" of her husband. 
The Adams organs stooped to the attack, and while the 
"National Intelligencer," under the editorship of Joseph 
Gales, refused thus to pollute its columns, the "National 
Journal," under the editorial management of Peter Force, 
and specially favored by the Adams Administration, spe- 
cialized on the slander of an excellent woman, A little later 
an attempt was made to justify the infamy of this proceeding 
by charging that Mrs. Adams had been assailed, but the 
extent of the assault was the charge that she was an English 
woman with little sympathy for American institutions. 

While history has accepted Adams's indignant denial of the 
charge that he had personally sanctioned the attack on Mrs. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 33 

Jackson, the National Central Committee, in charge of his 
campaign, was busily engaged in the dissemination of the 
putrid literature. This has been thoroughly established by 
the testimony of Thurlow Weed, editor of the "Albany Jour- 
nal," who refused to degrade himself by its circulation. When, 
early in August, before the election in November, he received 
"two large drygoods boxes" of the pamphlets, with a letter 
from the National Committee advising him that they con- 
tained "valuable campaign documents," with the request 
that he attend to their circulation "throughout the western 
counties of the State," he promptly "secured the boxes with 
additional nails and placed them under lock and key." And 
when the National Committee learned that they were not 
being distributed, and sent a representative to protest against 
his inactivity, he frankly informed the emissary that "not a 
copy had been seen or would be seen by an elector until the 
polls had closed." For this he was denounced in New York 
and Boston as "a traitor to the Administration," but the 
sagacious politician of Albany stoutly maintained that he 
" would not permit a lady whose life had been blameless to be 
dragged forth into the arena of politics." ^ 

The charge of murder lodged against Jackson, by editor, 
hack-writer, and cartoonist, had reference to his execution of 
Arbuthnot, two Indian chiefs, and seven of his soldiers, and 
to his duel with Dickinson. Pictures of the coflBns of the 
soldiers were printed on circulars and distributed from farm- 
house to farmhouse in New England.^ This gave Hill an 
opportunity to tickle Jackson with a rejoinder which was 
copied from the "New Hampshire Patriot" into all the Jack- 
son papers of the country: "Pshaw! Why don't you tell the 
whole truth? On the 8th of January, 1815, he murdered in 
the coldest kind of cold blood 1500 British soldiers for merely 

1 Weed's Autobiography, 308-09. 

2 Bradley's Life of Isaac Hill. This circular may be seen in the Congressional 
Library. 



34 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

trying to get into New Orleans in search of Booty and 
Beauty." 

But all the scurrility of the campaign cannot be justly 
charged to the enemies of Jackson. His friends were almost 
as offensive. Adams had bribed Clay. He had bought the 
Presidency. While abroad he had pandered to the sensuality 
of the Russian Court. He was stingy, undemocratic, an 
enemy of American institutions, bent on the destruction of 
the people's liberties. He was an aristocrat, and had squan- 
dered the people's money in lavishly furnishing the East 
Room of the White House after the fashion of the homes of 
kings. He had even purchased a billiard table for the home 
of the President! 

And so it went on for weeks and months — the ordinary 
slanders of a present-day municipal campaign. A foreigner 
traveling through the country during the summer and au- 
tumn of 1828 would have thought the election of Adams cer- 
tain. In the marts, the counting-rooms, and the drawing- 
rooms, he would have found but one opinion ; but the astute 
Adams sensed the coming disaster and recorded his misgiv- 
ings in his diary. The temperamental Clay was depressed one 
day, to be exultant the next. But the new school of political 
leadership, managing the fight for Jackson, and devoting 
itself assiduously to the newly enfranchised "mob" in the 
highways and the byways, had no notion of defeat. The 
"hurrah for Jackson" which shocked the sedate, unaccus- 
tomed to such noisy acclaim of a presidential aspirant, and 
disgusted the "best people," was music to the ears of these 
modern politicians, who had carefully calculated upon the 
strength of the "mob." Their confidence was not misplaced. 
The result was an upheaval. Adams, Clay, Federalism, the 
Virginia Dynasty, the Secretarial Succession, were brushed 
aside by the rush of the cheering masses bearing their hero 
to the White House. History has decided that in this cam- 
paign "the people first assumed control of the governmental 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 35 

machinery which had been held in trust for them since 
1789"; and that "the party and Administration which then 
came into power was the first in our history which repre- 
sented the people without restriction, and with all the faults 
of the people." ^ 

n 

The Administration circle in Washington was deeply de- 
pressed by the result, and society looked forward to the reign 
of the barbarians with mingled feelings of mirth and abhor- 
rence. Although not unprepared for the defeat, the bitter 
Adams, meditating on his pohtical blunders, recorded that 
"some think I have suffered for not turning my enemies out 
of office, particularly the Postmaster-General." ^ That John 
McLean, the official referred to, had been disloyal to his chief 
was common knowledge. The first reaction to defeat from 
.the followers of the Adams Administration was toward 
laughter, levity, extravagant manifestation of cynical gayety, 
with an all too noticeable thawing of the frigidity of White 
House ceremonies. The dying regime put on its best bib and 
tucker in a hectic and hysterical demonstration of social 
hilarity. But this first reaction was short-lived. Very soon 
thereafter callers at Clay's home were "shocked at the alter- 
ation of his looks," and found him "much thinner, very 
pale, his eyes sunk in his head and his countenance sad and 
melancholy." ^ Mr. Rush (Secretary of the Treasury) was 
soon "alarmingly ill" — the "first symptoms of disease was 
altogether in the head." Mr. Southard (Secretary of the 
Navy) was confined to his room for three weeks. William 
Wirt (Attorney-General) suffered two attacks of vertigo, 
"followed by a loss of the sense of motion." General Porter 
(Secretary of War) "was almost blind from inflammation of 
the eyes and went to his office with two blisters, one behind 

^ Johnston and "Woodburn's American Political History. 

2 Adams's Memoirs. ' Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years, Jan. 1, 1829. 



36 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

each ear." Even the cold-blooded Adams, who appeared "in 
fine spirits," was soon "so feeble as to be obliged to relin- 
quish his long walks and to substitute rides on horseback." ^ 
A social intimate of the leaders swept from power by the 
rising of the masses mournfully recorded that they would 
retire to private life "with blasted hopes, injured health, 
impaired or ruined fortunes, imbittered tempers, and proba- 
bly a total inability to enjoy the remnant of their lives." ^ 

On none did the blow fall with such crushing force as on 
the proud-spirited Clay. As the repudiated regime was ap- 
proaching the end, the presiding genius of one of the favorite 
Administration drawing-rooms met him at a reception. 

"What ails your heart?" he asked. 

"Can it be otherwise than sad when I think what a good 
friend I am about to lose?" 

For a moment he held her hand without speaking, his eyes 
"filled with tears." 

"We must not think of this or talk of such things now," he 
said. And with that he relinquished her hand, "drew out his 
handkerchief, turned away his head and wiped his eyes, then 
pushed into the crowd and talked and smiled as if his heart 
were light and easy." ^ 

On February 25th this lady made another poignant note: 
"Mr. Clay's furniture is to be sold this week." 

Thus the old regime died hard, and in bitterness. 

in 

But "The King is dead — long live the King" — was the 
mood of the strange crowds in the streets of the capital — 
unusual creatures from the out-of-the-way places to whom 
the city was not accustomed. Never before had the inaugural 
ceremonies attracted the people of the farms and the villages, 
from every nook and corner. Long before the 4th of March 

» Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years. Jan. 1. 1829. 
* Ibid.. Jao. 12, 1829. » Ibid. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 37 

the city swarmed with all sorts and conditions, the rustic, the 
rural politician, the adventurer, along with politicians of 
influence and repute. They overflowed the city, filled all 
the hotels and rooming-houses, spread out to Georgetown, 
descended on Alexandria/ Webster, writing to his brother 
toward the close of February, said: "I have never seen such 
a crowd before. Persons have come five hundred miles to see 
General Jackson, and they really seem to think that the 
country has been rescued from some dreadful danger." ^ 
What they really thought was that they had come into their 
own. They hastened to "their capital," to witness the inau- 
guration of "their President," and, in many instances, in the 
hope of entering into their reward. 

Out of the maze of incomprehensible contradictions, we 
may gather that Jackson disappointed many of the faithful, 
who had planned a spectacular entrance to the capital, by 
entering quietly and unannounced in the early morning. 
Elaborate preparations had been made, a pompous reception 
committee of the socially elect and politically pure had been 
organized, headed by John P. Van Ness, the dean of society 
and husband of the exquisite Marcia Burns, and plans had 
been perfected for leading a great throng into the country 
to meet and escort him to the accompaniment of gun fire 
into the city. Reaching the capital four hours before he 
was expected,^ he went directly to Gadsby's where he took 
lodging.^ 

But the committee was not to be wholly deprived of its 
prerogatives. The moment the news reached it and the 
crowds, the celebration began. "I hear cannon firing, drums 
beating, and hurrahing. I really cannot write, so adieu for 

^ Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years. 

2 Webster's Correspondence. ' Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years. 

* Buell, in his Life of Jackson, says he went to the Indian Queen, "where he was 
temporarily domiciled." Mrs. Smith and President Adams, who were on the 
ground, agree that he stopped at Gadsby's. It is possible that he went first to 
the Indian Queen and then removed to Gadsby's. 



38 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the present," wrote Mrs. Smith. The mob surged down the 
Avenue to the hostelry famous for its whiskey, brandy, game, 
and the imposing ceremony of the host, packed the streets and 
fought for the privilege of entering and shaking the hand of ^ 
the man of the hour. From the moment of his arrival until 
he took the oath of office he was accessible to the most 
humble and obscure. Importuned and petitioned by ambi- 
tious politicians, the old man courteously heard them all, to 
the last man, and, according to all contemporaries, kept his 
own counsel as to prospective appointments. Even as late as 
March 2d, the observant Webster wrote his brother that the 
President-to-be was close-mouthed, and predicted that there 
would be few removals.^ The crafty Isaac Hill, of the "New 
Hampshire Patriot," had arrived early upon the scene, and 
we are indebted to him for a side-light on Jackson's methods 
and mood, and the scenes about the hotel. Almost daily this 
persistent aspirant for place wormed his way into the pres- 
ence of the source of all patronage. Jackson was cordial, 
remembered, quoted, laughed about witticisms in Hill's 
paper during the campaign, but said "little about the future 
except in a general way." There was cruel hilarity in that 
crowded room at Gadsby's over the maneuvers of the office- 
holders to retain their places. A "funny story" was told of 
Wirt writing to Monroe "soliciting his influence with the 
General to keep him on the pay roll."^ An old translator of 
twenty years' experience in the State Department had, in 
conversation, expressed a curiosity to know where a Demo- 
crat could be found to translate diplomatic French, and this 
was jokingly related to Jackson. "Oh, just tell him," said 
the General, "that if necessary I can bring Planche's whole 
Creole Battalion up here. Those French fellows, you know, 
who helped to defend New Orleans against the Red Coats 

^ Webster's Correspondence. 
Wirt wrote Monroe asking liis advice about resigning, and Monroe advised thig 
course, but expressed the opiniou that Jackson would not want to dispense with his 
services. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 39 

that had just made all the translators here take to the woods 
for their hves." This flare of spirit gratified and encouraged 
the spoilsmen. "Good, was n't it? " Hill wrote to his assistant 
in Concord. "Besides his courage and truth, Old Hickory 
has a fund of humor in his make-up, but most of his sallies, 
like the above, are likely to be a little bit cruel." 

About the time that Hill was writing to his assistant editor, 
he was meeting daily, at the home of Obadiah B. Brown, a 
preacher-politician, where Amos Kendall, a Kentucky editor, 
then obscure, but destined to become the master mind of the 
Administration, was holding forth, and organizing a number 
of fellow journalists who had been useful in the campaign, to 
compel recognition. There, in the home of the jovial preacher, 
Kendall and Hill were making common cause with the smil- 
ing Major M. M. Noah of New York, Nathaniel Green of 
Massachusetts, and the quiet but sagacious Gideon Welles 
of Connecticut. More political history was being made in the 
humble abode of Brown than in the crowded, smoke-laden 
room at Gadsby's.^ The Kentucky editor does not seem to 
have encountered the same reticence in Jackson that Hill had 
found. After his first call at Gadsby's, we find him writing 
his wife : " He expressed his regards for me and his disposition 
to serve me, in strong terms." And a few days later, after his 
second call, he writes: 'The other day I had a long conver- 
sation with General Jackson. At the close of it, after say- 
ing many flattering things of my capacity, character, etc., he 
observed, 'I told one of my friends that you were fit for the 
head of a department, and I shall put you as near the head as 
possible.' " ^ 

It is significant of the change of the times that, while the 
practical politicians of the new school were encouraged and 
jubilant, the seasoned veterans of political battle-fields were 
discouraged and not a little disgruntled. Amusing tales of 
the discomfiture of these were gayly carried to the politicians 

^Perley's Reminiscences, i, 96. * Amos Kendall's Autobiography. 



40 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

of the Opposition in the salon of Mrs. Smith, who recorded, 
toward the close of February, that "every one thinks there is 
great confusion and difficulty, mortification and disappoint- 
ment at the Wigwam, as they call the General's lodgings. 
Mr. Woodbury ^ looks glum, as well as several other disap- 
pointed expectants." ^ 

The battle royal occurred in the selection of the Cabinet. 
The one principle on which Jackson was determined was the 
exclusion from his Cabinet table of any aspirant for the suc- 
cession. He had been profoundly impressed by the demoraliz- 
ing effect of the intrigues of the presidential candidates in 
the Cabinet of Monroe. ^ This, however, did not deter the 
two powerful men of the party, Calhoun and Van Buren, 
from exerting themselves to pack the Cabinet with men 
favorable to their respective aspirations for the chief magis- 
tracy. Of the latter's plans the President-elect knew nothing. 
He had probably decided to ask the clever New York politi- 
cian to accept the portfolio of State before leaving the Hermit- 
age. He had been intimate with Van Buren in the Senate; 
had been impressed with his tact, diplomacy, and ability, and 
especially with his genius in the creation, consolidation, and 
drilling of a party, and in formulating its policies. He was 
not unmindful of the part the "Red Fox"^ had played in his 
nomination and election. In view of all the conditions the 
selection of Van Buren was logical and inevitable.^ It was 
just as inevitable that Calhoun, the Vice-President, should 
be hostile to the choice. Primarily, we may be sure, the South 
Carolinian recognized in the suave and subtle New Yorker 
a dangerous rival for the succession. Whether he was even 
that early interested in strengthening the South at the ex- 
pense of the North is not so certain. However that may 
be, he appeared in the throng of wire-pulling politicians at 

^ Later in the Cabinet. 2 Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years, 283. 

^ Adams, Crawford, and Calhoun. * Van Buren was thus known in his day. 

. * Van Buren in his Autobiography ascribes his selection to the party managers. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 41 

Gadsby's, earnestly urging that Senator Tazewell of Virginia 
should be placed at the head of the Cabinet. This able 
statesman but a little time before had maintained close polit- 
ical relations with Van Buren,^ but he was an extreme State- 
Rights advocate, entirely satisfactory to Calhoun. During 
the half-concealed struggle over the Cabinet, Van Buren, 
who had been elected Governor of New York and was stay- 
ing in Albany, was well served in Washington by James A. 
Hamilton, whose mission was to keep in intimate touch with 
events and inform the New Yorker of all developments. 
Thus it happened that Hamilton was with Jackson when, 
at ten o'clock one morning, Calhoun called for a conference 
with the President-elect. "I know what it is about," said 
Jackson to Van Buren 's agent. "He cannot succeed. I wish 
you to remain until he leaves." It was during this conference, 
the last he ever had with the President on patronage matters, 
that Calhoun made his final stand for Tazewell, or against 
Van Buren. With great solemnity he urged the appointment 
of the Virginian, largely because of "his great knowledge 
and wisdom," but partly on the ground that it would assure 
the support of Virginia for the Administration. It is doubt- 
ful whether, up to this time, Calhoun had appreciated the 
political sagacity of the man with whom he dealt. Jackson 
listened to his importunity with courteous attention, but did 
not commit himself. One suggestion he made, however, 
which must have warned the great Carolinian that his mo- 
tives were divined. When Calhoun stressed the importance 
of cultivating Virginia, Jackson blandly inquired whether it 
would not be useful to have the support of New York. Cal- 
houn's reply disclosed his animus against the "Little Magi- 
cian." The appointment of Clinton, had he lived, might have 
guaranteed the support of the Empire State, but the selection 
of no other citizen of that State would. He left, no doubt, 

^ See letter of Tazewell to Ritchie regarding the establishment of a party organ 
in Washington in Ambler's Life of Thomas Ritchie. 



42 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

with the feehng that he had failed in his mission, and never 
again approached Jackson on the subject of appointments. 
And the moment he left, a detailed story of the conference 
was given to Hamilton, who promptly sent it to his chief in 
Albany. 1 

When Jackson reached the capital he had made no decision 
as to the Treasury, and there he was to be buffeted about by 
many cross-currents. Van Buren, who was socially and polit- 
ically intimate with Louis McLane of Delaware, was anxious 
that he should be named for the post, and the gentleman 
himself was on the ground ready to respond to the summons 
that failed to come. The political tacticians at Gadsby's 
reached the decision early that the place should be awarded 
to Pennsylvania, and Samuel D. Ingham, who had rushed to 
Washington as a representative of one of the factions, with 
an application for a subordinate position in the Treasury, 
became an active candidate for the more important honor. 
This was displeasing to Jackson, who favored Henry Bald- 
win, but in this preference he was unable to secure any 
important support among his advisers.^ Strangely enough, 
powerful influences almost immediately rushed to the sup- 
port of the man who would have been delighted with a com- 
paratively obscure position. The Pennsylvania congressional 
delegation, on which he had served for years, unanimously 
endorsed him. Stranger still, Calhoun, with whom Jackson 
at this juncture had no desire to break, became an ardent 
supporter of his candidacy. He had served in the House of 
Representatives many years before with the mediocre Penn- 
sylvanian, and had found in him one of his most faithful idol- 
aters. That his influence, and the desire to recognize him in 
the making of the Cabinet, was the determining factor, was 
the consensus of opinion at the time. 

But here again appeared cross-currents difficult to under- 

* See Hamilton's Reminiscences, 101. 

* See ibid., p. 97, on Ingham's original ambition. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 43 

stand. South Carolina, usually so subservient to the wishes 
of her great statesman, but now cool toward him, was un- 
compromisingly hostile to his favorite for the Treasury. The 
other leading members of the South Carolina delegation, 
known to be opposed to Ingham and to prefer McLane to 
him, had hesitated from motives of delicacy to make their 
views known to Jackson; and Van Buren's favorite for the 
position authorized Hamilton, Van Buren's emissary, to no- 
tify the General of their willingness to call if their opinion 
was wanted.^ On February 17th, the Carolinians, including 
Senator Hayne, McDuffie, Hamilton, Archer, and Drayton, 
filed into the throne room at Gadsby's, and Hamilton, who 
acted as spokesman, began by tactfully commending the 
selection of Van Buren, and then turned to the Treasury. 
Before he could announce his candidate, Jackson interrupted 
with the announcement that Ingham had been chosen. 
Nothing daunted, Hamilton suggested as a better choice the 
brilliant Langdon Cheves of South Carolina. "Impossible," 
snapped the grim old man. Then why not McLane? That, 
too, was instantly dismissed, and the Carolinians left Gads- 
by's in a rage. " I assure you I am cool — damn cool — never 
half so cool in my life," Hamilton exclaimed immediately 
afterwards. 2 

For the War Department there was no such competition, 
and after an unsuccessful attempt had been made to con- 
ciliate Tazewell with the post, Jackson, who was anxious to 
have among his advisers one of his old friends and managers, 
satisfied himself with the selection of Senator John H. Eaton 
of Tennessee. 

The processes of reasoning leading to the appointment of 

* Hamilton, in his Reminiscences, p. 99, makes this unqualified statement. Pro- 
fessor Bassett, in his admirable Life of Jackson, p. 416, says that Jackson told Cal- 
houn to notify the delegation of his willingness to see them. Knowing the delega- 
tion to be opposed to the man he favored, and to prefer Van Buren's candidate, it 
seems more probable that Hamilton was the emissary and not the Carolinian. 

^ The Carolinian's opposition to Ingham was due to his tariff views. 



44 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Senator John Branch of North Carolina as Secretary of the 
Navy have been lost to history and there is no clue. We know 
that Van Buren and his friends strongly urged the selection 
of Woodbury of New Hampshire; and McLane expressed the 
contemporary state of mind in a letter to his friend: "By 
what interest that miserable old woman, Branch, was ever 
dreamed of, no one can tell." This much we know — that 
Branch himself did not have the most remote idea of entering 
the Cabinet when the invitation reached him from Gadsby's, 
and he withheld his acceptance until he could consult with a 
number of his friends.^ Two reasons have been advanced as 
probable. The one, popular at the time, was that Jackson's 
advisers thought that something should be done to promote 
the social prestige of the Administration; and the other, 
generally accepted by historians, that the appointment was 
made as another concession to Calhoun. While the Carolin- 
ian made no request for his inclusion in the Cabinet, Branch 
was one of his most loyal followers. 

There is no real justification for astonishment over the 
decision of the conferees at the Wigwam to ask Senator John 
McPherson Berrien of Georgia to accept the position of 
Attorney-General. Not only was he a brilliant member of the 
Senate, noted as an orator, but his professional reputation in 
his section was almost as great as that of Webster in New 
England. His votes in the Senate on the party measures of 
the Adams Administration had been pleasing to Jackson, 
and, whether he was named as another gesture of good-will 
toward Calhoun, as generally assumed, or not, his appoint- 
ment could not have been displeasing to the Vice-Presi- 
dent. 

While the Postmaster-General had not hitherto been a 
member of the Cabinet, the Jackson board of strategy, wish- 
ing to manifest its appreciation of John McLean, who had 
held the post under Adams while exerting himself on behalf 

* From speech of Branch, quoted in Haywood's brochure on Branch, pp. 14.-15. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 45 

of Jackson, determined to raise the position to the Cabinet 
and retain him.^ 

Thus the Cabinet was completed, and after a fashion in- 
dicative of no desire on the part of Jackson to quarrel with 
his Vice-President. Van Buren, who did not enter into the 
President's calculations as to the succession, had been given 
the most desirable post, but his friends, McLane and Wood- 
bury, had been set aside for Ingham and Branch, both de- 
voted to the political fortunes of Calhoun. The latter was 
represented by half the Cabinet, Ingham, Branch, and Ber- 
rien, and no stretch of the imagination could make the other 
two members, Eaton and McLean, other than absolutely 
independent of the wily politician of Kinderhook. The proc- 
esses through which all this was speedily changed enter into 
one of the most fascinating dramas of political intrigue in the 
history of the Republic. 

IV 

While the President-elect was holding his conferences, with 
the mysterious Major Lewis going in and out at Gadsby's 
and playing with the destinies of men, and the streets were 
seething with an incongruous crowd shouting their "Hurrah 
for Jackson," Jackson was remaining coldly aloof from the 
occupant of the White House. He had carried to Washington 
a bitter resentment against Adams and his personal lieuten- 
ants, because of the dastardly attacks upon the woman then 
buried at the Hermitage. He made no call of courtesy, and 
Adams was stung to the quick. Especially painful to the old 
Puritan was the thought that he had been considered capable 
of a vulgar assault upon the good name of a woman. After 
much struggling with his pride, he made the first advance by 
sending a messenger to Jackson to inform him that the White 
House would be ready for his occupancy on the 4th of March. 

' Adams knew of McLeau's treachery, and in his Memoirs denounces him bit- 
terly. 



46 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

"He brought me the answer," Adams records, "that the 
General cordially thanked him, and hoped that I would put 
myself to no inconvenience to quit the house, but to remain 
in it as long as I pleased, even for a month." ^ A few days 
later, Adams sent his messenger to say that his packing 
might require two or three days beyond the 3d, and Jackson 
replied that he did not wish to put him to the slightest incon- 
venience, "but that Mr. Calhoun had suggested that there 
might be danger of the excessive crowds breaking down the 
rooms at Gadsby's, and the General had concluded, if it 
would be perfectly convenient to us, to receive his company 
at the President's house after the inauguration on Wednes- 
day next." Whereupon Adams "concluded at all events to 
leave the house on Tuesday." ^ Thus the closing days of his 
Administration must have been bitter, indeed, to the proud 
old Puritan of the White House. Deliberately ignored by his 
successor, tortured by the thought of the treachery of Mc- 
Lean and others, the co-workers of his regime, depressed, 
embittered, or in hiding, he appears to have been utterly 
forgotten by the society of the capital as well as by the 
general public. Justice Story observing his isolation was 
moved to write in bitterness to a friend that he had never 
"felt so forcibly the emptiness of public honors and public 
favor." Certainly no generous sympathy was felt for him by 
his triumphant foes. When, on the last Sunday before the 
inauguration, the pastor of the President's church unhappily 
selected for his text, "What will ye do on the solemn day.?" 
one of Jackson's courtiers, who had attended the services, 
hurried back to Gadsby's, and the company assembled there 
went into gales of laughter, and agreed that it would be, for 
some, a "solemn day." 

That day was heralded by the thunder of cannon — a 
day of warmth and sunshine. All roads led to the Capitol, 
and from an early hour the thoroughfares were thronged 

» Adams's Memoirs. Feb. 24, 1829. « Ibid.. Feb. 28, 1829. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 47 

with the eager, enthusiastic, motley crowd, rejoicing audibly 
in the event. Down the Avenue the good-natured mob fought 
its way, the splendid Barronet and the stately coaches 
splashed by the wagons and the carts, women and children 
in exquisite finery crowded by women and children in home- 
spun and rags, statesmen jostled by uncouth frontiersmen, 
the laborer brushing inconsiderately, and perhaps a little 
arrogantly, against the banker — for it was the People's 
Day. When, at eleven o'clock, the aristocratic Mrs. Smith set 
forth with her company, she found the Avenue one living 
mass, flowing sluggishly eastward, with every terrace and 
portico and balcony packed, and with all the windows of the 
Capitol crowded, some to observe the approach on the west, 
and others to witness the ceremony on the east. When the 
mob caught sight of Jackson and his party walking from 
Gadsby's in democratic fashion, it pressed in upon him, im- 
peding his approach, but seeming in nowise to challenge his 
displeasure, for he alone of his party walked with bared head. 
The spectators on the south terrace thrilled to the scene — 
an American king going to his coronation, acclaimed and 
accompanied by the plain people. The ceremonies over, he 
fought his way to his waiting horse — and down the Avenue 
he rode, followed by the most picturesque cortege that ever 
trailed a conqueror — gentlemen of society and backwoods- 
men, scholars and the illiterate, white and black, the old 
hobbling on crutches and canes and children clinging to their 
mothers' gowns, walking and riding in carriages and wagons 
and carts — following to the People's House. 

There the unwieldy mob, in carnival mood, hundreds only 
accustomed to the rough life of the frontier, stormed the 
mansion, fighting, scrambling, elbowing, scratching. Waiters 
appearing with refreshments were rushed by the uncouth 
guests, resulting in the crash of glass and china. Men in 
heavy boots, covered with the mud of the unpaved streets, 
sprang upon the chairs and sofas to get a better view of the 



48 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

hero of the hour.^ Women fainted, some were seen with 
bloody noses, and Jackson was saved from being crushed 
only by the action of some gentlemen in making a barrier of 
their bodies. After this the old soldier beat a hasty retreat 
through the back way to the south, and sought relief at 
Gadsby's.2 "I never saw such a mixture," wrote Justice 
Story. "The reign of King Mob seemed triumphant." And 
Mrs. Smith writing of her experience said: "The noisy and 
disorderly rabble . . . brought to my mind descriptions I have 
read of the mobs in the Tuileries and at Versailles." 

And on the day that Jackson was enjoying, or trembling 
at, the popularity of his triumph, where was Adams? The day 
before the inauguration he had removed to the home of Com- 
modore Porter on the outskirts of the city; and at the time 
the surging multitude was all but drowning the roar of the 
cannon with its cries for Jackson, the dethroned President, 
finding the day "warm and springlike," had ordered his 
horse, and, accompanied by a single companion, had ridden 
into the city "through F Street to the Rockville turnpike," 
and over that until he reached a road leading to the Porters' 
— reminded of the passing of his power by the neglect of the 
people.^ 

Henry Clay shut himself in his house and did not leave it 
during the day — tormented by bitter regrets. 

V 

Almost immediately Jackson began to get the reaction on 
his Cabinet and his policies. The disaffections in the house 
of his friends, which were to cause him so much embarrass- 
ment during the first two years of his Administration, began 
to appear before the shouts of the crowd on the White House 
lawn had died away. We have it on the authority of the 

1 Wilson's Washington, the Capital City, i, SJ51. 
* Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years. 295. 
' Adams's Memoirs, March 4, 1829. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 49 

capital gossips of the day that when McLean, the Postmaster- 
General, who had betrayed Adams, heard of his new chief's 
plans for wholesale dismissals of postmasters, he warned 
Jackson that in his proceedings against those officials who 
had participated in politics he would be forced to include in 
the proscription the supporters of Jackson as well as those 
who had been faithful to Adams; that Jackson, for a moment 
nonplussed, sat puffing at his pipe, then arose, and, after 
walking up and down the room several times, stopped 
abruptly before his obstreperous minister, with the question: 
*'Mr. McLean, will you accept a seat on the bench of the 
Supreme Court?" — and that McLean instantly accepted.^ 
This is vouched for by Nathan Sargent, who says that on the 
evening of the interview Lewis Cass told him, at a reception 
at the home of General Porter, that McLean, with whom he 
was intimate, had just described the interview to him.^ The 
civic virtue of Mr. McLean has been explained on the theory 
that he entertained presidential aspirations and did not care 
to incur the displeasure of the many postmasters who were 
friendly to his ambition. However that may be, he secured 
a position of which he was not unworthy, and Jackson prob- 
ably saved himself some trouble by meeting a sudden crisis 
in a truly Jacksonian way. 

It is reasonable to assume that during the brief moments 
he walked the floor puffing his pipe, he determined upon 
McLean's successor. One week before his inauguration, he 
had given James A. Hamilton a list of applicants for office 
with the request for an opinion and report, and among these 
was the application of William T. Barry of Kentucky for a 
place on the Supreme Bench. The applications had been 
returned to him with the recommendation that the Ken- 
tuckian be appointed. He was known to Jackson as an 
"organization man." It was probably the matter of a mo- 

* Perley^s Reminiscences, i, 98. 

* Sargent's Public Men and Events, i, 165-66. 



50 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ment, for one of the President's quick decision, to make the 
exchange — McLean for the Bench, Barry for the Cabinet.^ 
His efforts to soothe the injured feehngs of Senator Tazewell, 
whose heart had been set on the portfolio of State, were not 
so successful. After the disappointed statesman had refused 
the War Department, some of the Jackson tacticians con- 
ceived the idea of offering him the mission to London, and 
for a few days the Virginian seemed tempted. But one week 
after the inauguration, he wrote the President that domestic 
reasons precluded an acceptance. Keenly disappointed and 
concerned, Jackson, after a consultation with one of his ad- 
visers,2 wrote a personal note to Tazewell requesting him 
to call at the White House. It is not incomprehensible that 
in his angry mood the proud Southerner should have resented 
the earnest importunity of the direct Jackson, and he left the 
President with the statement to McLean that he had not 
liked the General's manner in looking him through and 
through and telling him he must go. He had looked upon it 
as a military order, and considered the matter at rest. This 
opened the way, however, for the recognition of Van Buren's 
friend, Louis McLane, whose rujQBed feelings were smoothed 
by the appointment to the English Court. But within a week 
two of Jackson's party friends and supporters, McLean and 
Tazewell, had been alienated and were ripe for the seduction 
of the Opposition. 

Meanwhile, as soon as Clay could recover from the shock 
of defeat, he began the organization and solidification of a 
bitter and stubborn opposition to the Administration. As 
early as the first of January it was evident that "the aim of 
the defeated party is to get a majority in the Senate and 
thereby to control the President." ^ During the first few weeks 

^ Hamilton, in his Reminiscences, p. 100, tells of his report to Jackson on Barry's 
application. 

^ Hamilton. See Hamilton's Reminiscences, 90-91, 

' Mrs. Smith thus writes in the First Forty Years, and her salon was the center of 
Whig gossip. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 51 

of the new Administration the iron sank deep into the souls 
of the dispossessed office-holders and their friends. It was 
manifest that there was something more than a new master 
in the White House — that a regime had passed, a dynasty 
had fallen. Previous Presidents had entered office with the 
good wishes of most of their political opponents, but it was 
clear from the beginning that the dispossessed had steeled 
themselves against conciliation, were planning to find fault 
on general principles, and to exert themselves to the utmost 
to wreck the Administration. The Cabinet was greeted with 
derision and the Whig drawing-rooms made merry over the 
"millennium of the minnows." All the members of the new 
official fariily were ridiculed with the exception of Van 
Buren and even he, while conceded to be a "profound poli- 
tician," was "not supposed to be an able statesman." ^ The 
vitriolic and vindictive Adams, nursing his wrath to keep it 
warm, poured forth on the pages of his diary vituperative 
denunciations of the Cabinet, together with the gossip of 
the malicious. Ten days of the new regime, and he had ren- 
dered the verdict that "the only principles yet discernible in 
the conduct of the President" were "to feed the cormorant 
appetite for place, and to reward the prostitution of can- 
vassing defamers." ^ 

While Adams indulged in these unfriendly reflections 
merely to feed his personal vanity, and to record his supe- 
riority. Clay, equally bitter, was not content to shut his 
reflection up between the covers of a book. To him defeat 
had been especially bitter. He hated Jackson with vindictive 
malice because the latter really credited the "bargain" story, 
and had sanctioned its circulation. His overpowering pas- 
sion was to reach the Presidency. He had entered the offi- 
cial household of Adams as the head of the Cabinet when 
the "Secretarial Succession" seemed definitely established, 
and had looked forward to succeeding his chief at the end of 

^ Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years. * Adams's Memoirs, March 14, 1829. 



52 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

his second Administration, The fact that there had been no 
second Administration had been due, in part, to the prevalent 
opinion that Clay had entered into a bargain for power, and 
he faced retirement from public life feeling that his great 
opportunity had failed him and that his reputation had been 
stained. He was the type of man whose bitterness must find 
relief in action. From the moment he recovered from the 
shock of the election, he dedicated himself to the pursuit of 
Jackson. 

In judging of the sincerity of his unrelenting opposition 
during the next eight years, it is well to bear in mind that 
before Jackson had perfected a policy, or proclaimed a prin- 
ciple, Mr. Clay attended a banquet given in his honor within 
a stone's throw of the White House, at which he assailed the 
President with an intemperance of denunciation never ex- 
ceeded in later years. This was evidently personal. One 
week after the inauguration he said to Mrs. Bayard Smith: 
"There is not in Cairo or in Constantinople a greater moral 
despotism than is at this moment exercised over public opin- 
ion here. Why, a man dare not avow what he thinks or 
feels, or shake hands with a personal friend, if he happens to 
differ from the powers that be." ^ On the very day this re- 
markable statement was recorded by the chronicler of the 
Whig drawing-rooms, Adams wrote in his diary: "Mr. Clay 
told me some time since that he had received invitations at 
several places on his way to Lexington to public dinners, and 
should attend them, and that he intended freely to express 
his opinions." 2 A little later Adams notes that while riding 
he passed Mr. Clay in a carriage driving toward Baltimore 
on his way to Kentucky — pale, stern, and sour. On that 
journej'', and without having at that time any particular ac- 
tions of the new Administration on which to base an attack, 
he spoke wherever the opportunity was afforded, and always 
with a vehement denunciation of President Jackson. 

^ First Forty Years, March 12, 1829. * Adams's Memoirs, March 12, 1829. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 53 

The inauguration was over; the people from afar, having 
seen "their" President and visited "their" White House, 
had returned to their homes; and Henry Clay, the most 
consummate of politicians, one of the most eloquent of men, 
was already meditating upon the organized assault that was 
to be made upon the new regime. Now let us acquaint our- 
selves with the advisers with whom the President had sur- 
rounded himself officially. 

VI 

By common consent the Whig aristocracy conceded that 
Martin Van Buren was the strong man of the Cabinet because 
of an uncanny cleverness as a politician, while denying him 
the qualities of statesmanship or intellectual leadership. 
Even as a politician tradition would have him of the super- 
ficial, manipulating, intriguing sort. History had generally 
accepted this tradition until Mr. Shepard's masterful biog- 
raphy ^ focused attention upon his career, and the publica- 
tion of his fascinating "Autobiography" disclosed his in- 
tellectuality. He stood out among the politicians of his time, 
to whom history has been kinder, because of his refusal to 
indulge in the popular personal attacks or to stoop to disrep- 
utable intrigues. A man of even temper, blessed with a 
sense of humor, he found it not only possible but profitable 
and pleasurable to maintain social relations with political 
opponents, and all that the embittered Adams could see in 
this was that " he thought it might one day be to his interest 
to seek friendship." In senatorial debates he had discussed 
principles and policies calmly, instead of indulging in fiam- 
boyant discourses flaming with personalities — and this was 
accepted in his day as evidence that he held his principles 
lightly. Adams wrote that "his principles are always sub- 
ordinate to his ambition." ^ 

This "superficial politician" was the greatest lawyer 

* American Statesmen Series. * Adams's Memoirs, April 4, 1829. 



54 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

elected to the Presidency before the Civil War, and, with 
the possible exception of the second Harrison, the greatest 
lawyer-President we have had. Living in a community over- 
whelmingly Federalistic, this "trimmer without principles" 
became a bitter opponent of Federalism. With all the rich 
and powerful of the locality allied with Federalism, this 
"courtier" entered the other camp. When Burr was a candi- 
date for Governor, with the support of Van Buren's preceptor 
in the law, this young man, who "was under the influence of 
his evil genius," ardently supported the Clinton-Livingston 
candidate, who was elected. When he entered politics, he 
found the spoils system thoroughly established in New York, 
and political proscription practiced by both parties, but that 
was not to prevent his enemies from charging him with its 
initiation. He did not quarrel with the system. He used, but 
never abused it. And in the days of his limitation to State 
politics, he displayed qualities of statesmanship, patriotism, 
and courage. New York Federalism did not dismiss him as 
a mere schemer and intriguer when he led his party in the 
State Senate. He met the Federalist attack upon the War 
of 1812 upon the floor of the Senate, and not in party caucus. 
When Federalism fought every needful measure, he became 
as much the spokesman of the war party in Albany as Clay, 
Calhoun, and Grundy in Washington. In reaching an esti- 
mate of Van Buren, it is important to bear in mind that this 
alleged man of indecision, without initiative or constructive 
capacity, was the author of " the most energetic war meas- 
ure" adopted in the country.^ As a member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention of New York, dealing with the extension of 
suffrage, when Chancellor Kent, giving free rein to his aris- 
tocratic tendencies, was opposing the extension, and mere 
demagogues were advocating the immediate letting down of 
the bars to all, it is significant, both of his Americanism and 

* Benton's characterization of Van Buren's Classification Bill; Thirty Years* 
View. 




o 

H 

w 
pa 

K 

o 
a 




Pi 



H 
Pi 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 55 

his wisdom, that Van Buren scorned both the role of reac- 
tionary and demagogue, and proposed the plan for the grad- 
ual extension of suffrage in a speech couched in the language 
of seasoned statesmanship. Thus, at the time he entered 
National life, there was nothing in his career to justify the 
conventional estimate of his public character. 

With the inauguration of Adams, soon after he had entered 
the United States Senate, Van Buren became the recognized 
leader of the Opposition, and he set himself the task of organ- 
izing and militantizing a party to fight the Federalistic trend 
of the President. There were various elements on which he 
could draw. With his genius for organization and direction, 
he made it his work to seek a common ground upon which 
all could stand together in harmony. He fought the prin- 
ciples and policies of the Administration in dignified fashion, 
without recourse to scurrility; but he capitahzed every mis- 
take and gave it fullest publicity through the circulation of 
carefully prepared speeches, after the fashion of the present 
day. Careful to discriminate, even in his attacks, between 
personal and political wrongdoing, he treated Adams with 
the utmost courtesy. With a party formed, he drilled it as 
carefully as was ever done by the Albany Regency. He 
instilled into it the party spirit. He mobilized an army. 
With this he fought the Administration on the floor. 

But he was one of the first, if not the first, to take the 
people outside the halls of Congress into consideration. To 
create a party without as well as within the Congress, he 
arranged for the circulation of carefully prepared senatorial 
speeches for the moulding of public opinion in the highways 
and the byways. Thus he was probably responsible for the 
delivery of the first congressional speeches intended solely 
for campaign use. 

In person he was slight, erect, and scarcely of middle 
height. His intellectuality was indicated by his high, broad 
forehead, and his bright, quick eye. His smile, which was 



56 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

habitual, was genial and seemed sincere. His features, gener- 
ally, were pleasing. His manner was always courtly, and he 
made a study of deportment. No professional diplomat of 
the Old World, living in the atmosphere of courts, could have 
been more poHshed. Contemporaries have described him as 
"extraordinarily bright and attractive, but without anything 
supercilious." ^ In social life he was a favorite. Few men of 
his period were better fitted for the drawing-room. An enter- 
taining talker, he could converse intelligently upon a multi- 
tude of subjects and could pass from a political conference 
with the Kitchen Cabinet to a social call on Adams, or a chat 
with Clay, without effort or embarrassment. Fond of femi- 
nine society, he could be as charming to a debutante as to a 
grande dame, and we find him delighting the brilliant Mrs. 
Livingston with his intellectual charm, while captivating her 
daughter, Cora, with his juvenile levity. Fastidious to a de- 
gree, he could enjoy the unconventional moments of Jack- 
son in his shirt-sleeves and with his pipe, and make the 
pleasure mutual. This premier of an Administration that con- 
temporaries of the Opposition loved to describe as plebeian 
and vulgar "was perhaps as polished and captivating a per- 
son as the social circles of the Republic have ever known." ^ 
As we shall see, nothing ruffled him. He never forgot his 
dignity nor lost his temper. He was all suavity. He was all 
art. 

He lives in history as a politician and President and is 
never thought of as an orator. He belonged rather to the 
type of parliamentary speaker which followed the scintillat- 
ing period when Pitt declaimed in stately sentences and Fox 
thundered with emotional eloquence — the conversational 
type which is still prevalent at Westminster. He made no 
pretense to an artful literary style, but his speeches were in 
good taste. W^e have the tradition that he not only prepared 

» Ellet's Court Circles of the Republic. 149. 
2 Senator Foote's Casket of Remiiiiscencus, 59. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 57 

his speeches with infinite care, which is probable, but that he 
rehearsed them before a mirror, which is debatable. It is 
said that on his retirement from the Senate, and at the sale 
of his household goods at auction, "it was noticed that the 
carpet before the large looking-glass was worn threadbare," 
and that "it was there that he rehearsed his speeches." ^ 
That he was something of an artist and an actor we shall 
see in the course of the recital of the events of the Jackson 
Administration. 

Secretary of the Treasury Ingham was a Pennsylvania 
paper manufacturer who possessed little learning and stood 
in no awe of genius. His career had been that of a petty but 
persistent plodder who knew the ways of cunning. His mind 
was prosily practical, and he thought solely in terms of 
money. His fourteen years in Congress had been barren of 
achievement, but his business training had given him a cer- 
tain advantage over more brilliant men in the work of the 
committees. He was the forerunner of the machine politician 
of a later day, skillful in intrigue, unscrupulous in methods, 
and resourceful in the work of organization. His general 
character is not easily deduced from the conflicting opinions 
of his contemporaries. One of these, unfriendly to the Jack- 
son regime, wrote that he "is a good man of unimpeachable 
and unbending integrity"; ^ while Adams, after relating an 
incident tending to an opposite conclusion, tells us that 
"there is a portrait of Ingham in Caracci's picture of the 
Lord's Supper" — which is the nearest approach to a descrip- 
tion of his appearance that can be found. There is a general 
agreement, however, as to the inferiority of his talents, and 
in our political history he is scarcely the shadow of a sil- 
houette. 

Quite a different character was Secretary of War Eaton, 
a gentleman of education, polish, amiability, capacity, and 
wealth. The possession of a fortune deprived him of an in- 

^ Perley's Reminiscences, i, 65. * Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years. 



58 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

centive to the full exertion of his talents, and he frankly pre- 
ferred leisure to labor, discouraged the approach of clients, 
and liked nothing better than a quiet corner of his library at 
his country home near Nashville. There was nothing in his 
appearance, his manner, or conversation remotely to suggest 
the frontiersman, and, on the contrary, observers were im- 
pressed by his dignity and poise, his courtliness and courtesy. 
Even in the bitter days when society was in league against 
his wife, we find one of her harshest critics writing that 
"every one that knows esteems, and many love him for his 
benevolence and amiability." ^ He possessed many advan- 
tages for a political career. Having the time and money to 
devote to politics, he early developed a genius for organiza- 
tion, and an uncanny capacity for intrigue. The campaign 
of 1828 found him entrusted with much of the important 
work — the delicate missions. Wherever Jackson lacked or 
needed an organization, or one in existence required stiffening, 
there went Eaton, doing his work furtively, and on the sur- 
face nothing but its achievement indicated that it had been 
undertaken. 2 It was his fine Italian hand which wrought such 
havoc with Clay's forces in Kentucky. When that State 
began to waver as to Clay, Jackson determined to force the 
fighting in a territory at first thought hopelessly lost to the 
Democracy. Even Benton found his way to the "dark and 
bloody ground," but tradition has it that it was the suave 
and furtive Eaton, who appeared in different parts of Ken- 
tucky, making no speeches, and half concealing himself in a 
mantle of mystery, who divorced from Clay so many of his 
supporters. There is a sinister aspect to the general descrip- 
tion of his activities; and his enemies, and Jackson's, always 
insisted that he had parceled out jobs with a lavish hand. A 
man of culture, a soldier of acknowledged gallantry, a lawyer 
of ability, he was destined to an unhappy notoriety, but he 
deserved a better fate. 

1 First Forty Years, Feb. 25, 1829. * Buell's Life of Jackson. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 59 

The patrician of the Administration was Secretary of the 
Navy Branch, who, Hke Eaton, had inherited an ample for- 
tune, and had divided his time between poHtics, the practice 
of the law, and the management of a large plantation. At the 
time he entered the Cabinet, he had distinguished himself in 
the politics of North Carolina, had served three terms as 
Governor, and was a member of the United States Senate — 
scarcely the record of an obscure man. As chief executive of 
his State, his record had been far from that of a colorless 
time-serving politician without constructive qualities or 
vision. If his messages were couched in the lofty, pompous 
phrases of the period, they were not without substance. He 
was a pioneer in the field of popular education, the leader of 
a crusade against capital punishment for many crimes, an 
advocate of the substitution of imprisonment for the death 
penalty, and he urged the establishment of a penitentiary 
based on the idea of reformation. A man of great wealth, and 
an aristocrat by temperament, he led a fight against impris- 
onment for debt.^ His, too, is the distinction of having in 
that early day proposed the strict regulation of the medical 
profession as a protection of the public against impostors. 
A planter, and the owner of many slaves, he insisted, while 
Governor, on the protection of the legal rights of the blacks; 
and the petition of the entire population of Raleigh, the im- 
portunities of a hundred and twenty young women, the plea 
of State officials, were not sufficient to persuade him to save 
from the gallows a young white man who had murdered a 
slave. 2 In the Senate, while not distinguished as an orator, he 
was considered a strong debater and was respected as a man 
of courage and deep convictions. 

The portrait of Branch, which hangs in the Navy Depart- 
ment in Washington, suggests, in the slender profile and 

^ His message of 1819, found in Haywood's brochure on Branch, deals with the 
strangely barbarous custom of the times of lopping off the ears of perjurers. 
* Haywood relates this incident in his brochure. 



60 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

luminous eyes, the poet, rather than the poHtician. He is 
described by one who saw him often in his Washington days 
as "tall, well-proportioned, graceful in gestures, and affable 
and kindly in manner." ^ He had the graciousness of the 
Southern aristocrat of the old school, and was devoted to the 
social standards and customs of his section. Strongly at- 
tached to his home and family, having the poet's love of the 
artistic, he surrounded himself with beauty, and his home at 
Enfield was a comfortable and stately mansion surrounded 
by a smooth lawn, in the midst of gardens, orchards, and 
shade trees. His political career and the course of the Jack- 
son Administration were to be greatly influenced by his de- 
votion to his wife and daughters, and to his social ideals. 

In John McPherson Berrien, the Attorney-General, we have 
a character with whom history has played strange pranks. 
When he entered the Cabinet, he was conceded to be one of 
the most polished orators of his time and one of the famous 
lawyers of the South. His Washington debut in the Supreme 
Court, in a case involving the seizure of an African slave ship, 
had been a spectacular triumph. ^ All contemporaries agree 
as to his extraordinary gifts of eloquence. Perley Poore 
describes him as "a polished and effective orator." ^ Another 
contemporary found him "a model for chaste, free, beautiful 
elocution." * Still another has it that "he spoke the court 
language of the Augustan age." ^ Even the blase John Mar- 
shall, who listened to Webster and Choate, was so impressed 
that he dubbed him "the honey-tongued Georgian youth." ^ 
He had been in the Senate three years when a speech upon 
the tariff impelled the press of the period to describe him as 
"the American Cicero" — a designation that clung to him 

^ Ellet's Court Circles of the Repjihhc, 155. 

* Senator Foote describes it, in his Casket of Reminiscences, p. 14. 
^ Perley' s Reminiscences. 

* Sketches of Public Characters. New York, 18S0. 

^ Lucian Lamar Knight, Reminiscences of Famous Georgians. 

* Northern's Men of Mark in Georgia. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 61 

through life. The greatest speech made by any of the leaders 
of the Opposition on the Panama IVIission was the constitu- 
tional argument of Berrien.^ As a man he was cold and re- 
served, an aristocrat in manner, as in feeling. He made a 
virtue of not cultivating the multitude, scorned all compro- 
mise with his convictions, firmly believed in himself, and was 
not at all impressed with opposition. Utterly without tact or 
diplomacy, caustic and sarcastic, he incurred bitter enmi- 
ties, but his admirers, who liked to compare him with Cicero, 
took pride in this weakness. ^ As a political leader, he was 
dictatorial and demanded obedience without question. The 
slightest hesitation on the part of his tried and truest friends 
was usually followed by coldness on his part. Selfish to a 
degree, he was always keen for his personal advancement.^ 
Few more brilliant men have ever been Attorney-General of 
the United States. 

If Postmaster-General Barry was unknown to Washington, 
it was a matter of indifference to him. In politics he was an 
exotic. Entering Congress as a young man, he could have 
remained indefinitely, but congressional life did not allure 
him. For twenty years he had been an influential State politi- 
cian, serving in the legislature until sent to the United States 
Senate to fill an unexpired term. It is an interesting com- 
mentary on his preference for State oflBce that he resigned 
from the Senate, where he might have remained, to become 
Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court. Living in Lexing- 
ton as a neighbor of Henry Clay, he had been for many years 
one of the great leader's most ardent supporters, and it is 
significant of the character of the man that, while he sup- 
ported Clay against Jackson in 1824, the "bargain" story 
transformed him into a bitter foe. 

In view of their relations to the Jackson Administration 

^ This speech was incorporated in the 4th volume of EllioCs Debates as an exposi- 
tion of the Constitution. 

* Knight's Reminiscencea. ^ Miller's Bench and Bar of Georgia. 



62 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

years later, the estimate of Barry reached by Amos Kendall 
in 1814, and recorded in his "Autobiography," is interesting, 
and serves to account for the feeling, scarcely concealed, with 
which the journalist-politician afterwards undertook the 
unraveling of the difficulties into which Barry had plunged 
the Post-Office Department. It was when Kendall was on 
his way to Kentucky that he first met the Lexington politi- 
cian and went down the Ohio River with him and Mrs. Barry 
with "servants, horses, and carriages," in a boat thirty feet 
long, with three apartments. At the end of the journey Ken- 
dall wrote: "He appears to be a very good man but not a 
great man. For our passage he charged nothing, and in every 
way treated me like a gentleman. His lady seems to be a 
woman of good disposition, but uneducated." In contradic- 
tion to this estimate, we have another in which he is described 
as possessing extraordinary abilities, active business habits, 
an exact knowledge of men and things, and as being " a great 
orator."^ And this same authority describes Mrs. Barry 
as "frank, lady-like, free from affectations, possessing a fine 
person and agreeable manners." Parton tells us that he was 
"agreeable and amiable, but not a business man" — which 
is the final verdict of history. In person he was above the 
medium height, but slender and thin in face. He was modest 
in demeanor, and energetic — even though he did not always 
properly direct his energy — and fond of society. He became 
Postmaster-General because, according to the Jackson stand- 
ard, he had richly earned the reward. 

Such was the Jackson Cabinet which accompanied him 
into office. There have been greater Cabinets, but many 
inferior to it, and few with men possessing greater ability 
than Van Buren or Berrien, or more social distinction than 
Branch. There was not a single member who did not possess 
at least good ability, and Jackson had, or thought he had, 
what he said he proposed to have, a Cabinet without a pres- 

* Ellet's Court Circles of the Republic. 148. 



THE RISING OF THE MASSES 63 

idential aspirant. It is strange that the one man who devel- 
oped into a candidate almost immediately was the one to 
whom he became most ardently attached. 

We shall now note the first troubles of the oflScial family. 



CHAPTER III 

THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 

I 

Thirteen days after the inauguration, the Senate, having 
confirmed the Cabinet, adjourned, and the Administration 
could look forward to almost nine months of non-interference 
from the Congress. The pre-inaugural prediction that the 
President would adopt a policy of proscription of his political 
foes was almost immediately justified by events. The "spoils 
system," as an important cog in the machinery of politi- 
cal parties, thus frankly recognized, dates from this time. 
Through all the intervening years the civil service reformers 
have indulged in the most bitter denunciation of Jackson on 
the untenable theory that but for him public offices would 
never have been used as the spoils of party. Some of the 
most conscientious of historians have created the impression 
that the adoption of a proscriptive policy was due to some- 
thing inherently wrong in the President. As a matter of fact, 
Jackson was the victim of conditions and circumstances, and 
the new political weapon grew out of the exigencies of a new 
political era. 

For many years political parties had been chaotic, vapory, 
and indefinite; and if the politics of the young Republic had 
not been drifting toward personal government, it had been 
partaking of the nature of government by cliques and classes. 
The first Message of John Quincy Adams had made the def- 
inite division of the people into political parties inevitable — 
these parties standing for well-defined, antagonistic policies. 
Van Buren had early caught the drift and had cleverly or- 
ganized a party standing for principles and policies, rather 
than for personalities. John M. Clayton, soon to become one 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 65 

of the outstanding figures of the Opposition to the Jackson 
Administration, who had seldom voted even in presidential 
elections because of his indifference to the mere ambitions of 
individuals, understood that in 1828 something more was 
involved, and threw himself into the contest in support of 
Adams. And Clay was even then looking forward to the 
organization of a party pledged to internal improvements and 
a protective tariff. 

The Jackson Administration marks the beginning of po- 
litical parties as we have known them for almost a century. 

It was in this compaign, too, that the masses awakened 
to the fact that they had interests involved, and possessed 
power. Previous to this the aristocracy, the business and 
financial interests, and the intellectuals, alone, determined 
the governmental personnel. Men went into training for the 
Presidency, and, as in a lodge, passed, as a matter of course, 
from the Cabinet to the Vice-Presidency, and thence to the 
chief magistracy. An office-holding class, feehng itself secure 
in a life tenure, had grown up. 

As we have seen, the election of Jackson was due to the 
rising of the masses. Thousands who had never before par- 
ticipated in politics played influential parts in the campaign. 
The victory, they considered theirs. Thus they had flocked 
to Washington as never before to an inauguration, rejoicing 
in the induction of "their" President into office, and all too 
many pressing claims to recognition and entertaining hopes 
of entering upon their reward. Before the inauguration, the 
grim old warrior, awaiting the opportunity, at Gadsby's, to 
take the oath of office, had been fairly mobbed by ardent 
partisans of his cause, demanding the expulsion of the enemy 
and the appointment of his supporters to office. The 
Jackson press had been particularly insistent upon this 
point. Duff Green, of the "National Telegraph," had early 
announced that he naturally assumed that the office-holders 
who had actively campaigned for Adams would make way 



66 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

for the victors. This same feeling had spread into every com- 
munity in the country. Isaac Hill, writing in the "New 
Hampshire Patriot" immediately after the election, had 
sounded the onslaught for the Democracy of New England.^ 
And soon after reaching Washington, and sensing the atmos- 
phere at Gadsby's, the New England editor had written joy- 
ously to a friend: "You may say to all our anxious Adams- 
ites that The Barnacles will be scraped clean off the 
Ship of State. Most of them have grown so large and 
stick so tight that the scraping process will doubtless be 
fatal to them." 

Before Jackson's entry into the White House, the scenes 
in and about Gadsby's were scarcely less than scandal- 
ous. A great perspiring mob swarmed in the streets in front, 
crowded the tap-room, jostled its way in the halls, and, not- 
withstanding the efforts of Major Lewis, it demanded and 
secured admission to the President's private apartment. 
All admitted themselves responsible for Jackson's election. 
Amos Kendall, encountering a pompous stranger on the 
Avenue, was invited to look upon the man who had "de- 
livered Pennsylvania." ^ James A. Hamilton, who was close 
to Jackson in the early days of the Administration, was 
importuned by an Indianian, who had taken the electoral 
vote of the State to the Capitol, to intercede on his behalf for 
the Register's office at Crawfordsville, or the Marshalship. 
This typical office-seeker had "calculated to remain a few 
weeks . . . hoping that some of these violent Adams men 
may receive their walking papers." He carried letters of 
recommendation from all the Democratic members of the 

* " Every State in New England is now ruled by the same aristocracy that ruled 
in 1798 — that ruled during the late war. ... A band of New England Democrats 
have encountered the dominant party at vast odds — they have suffered every 
species of persecution and contumely. Shall these men not be protected by the Ad- 
ministration of the people under General Jackson? If that Administration fail to ex- 
tend this protection, then indeed it will fail of one of the principal objects for which 
the people placed them in power by at least two to one of the votes of the Union." 

* Kendall's Autobiography, 307. 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 67 

State Legislature "for any office I can ask." But, in view 
of the brisk competition, would not Hamilton kindly recall 
that he had received letters from the Hoosier bearing on the 
campaign, and personally testify to the important part he 
had played? ^ Others depended upon the length of their 
petitions, and two applicants from Pennsylvania, for the same 
office, had signers so numerous that the number had to be 
estimated by the length of the sheets. ^ 

Meanwhile there is no question but that Jackson was 
eager to serve his friends, if not to punish his enemies. From 
the moment of his election, he had entertained no illusions 
as to the character of the opposition his Administration 
would encounter. It was an open secret that his enemies, long 
before the inauguration, had begun to organize for the dis- 
crediting of his Administration. He was familiar with the bit- 
terness of Clay. And, with the determination to make his 
Administration a success, from his point of view, he turned 
his attention to preparations for the fight. His military 
training told him that it was fatal to enter a campaign with 
traitors in the camp. The disloyalty from which Adams had 
suffered had not been lost upon him.^ And he had fixed con- 
victions as to political organization. "To give effect to any 
principles," he said, "you must avail yourself of the physical 
force of an organized body of men. This is true alike in war, 
politics, or religion. You cannot organize men in effective 
bodies without giving them a reason for it. And when the 
organization is once made, you cannot keep it together unless 
you hold constantly before its members why they are or- 
ganized." ^ Thus party politics, in the modern sense, began 
with Jackson, and the spoils system grew out of the exigen- 
cies of party politics. Vicious though it may be, it is signifi- 
cant of its appeal to the rank and file of party workers, upon 

^ Hamilton's Reminiscences, 98. 

^ Ibid. ' Adams turned out but five. 

* Quoted by Francis P. Blair to Buell, author of the Life of Jackson. 



68 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

whom party success depends, that politicians of all parties, 
including Lincoln, have adopted it without shame. 

It does not appear that Jackson was greatly influenced 
in his course by his advisers, of either his constitutional or 
Kitchen Cabinet. Van Buren, who has been wrongfully ac- 
cused of so many things, and among others, of having been 
the dominating influence as to the spoils system, heard of the 
plan for sweeping changes with grave misgivings. "If the 
General makes one removal at this time," he said in a letter 
to Hamilton written from Albany, "he must go on. So far 
as depends on me, my course would be to restore by a single 
order every one who has been turned out by Mr. Clay for 
political reasons, unless circumstances of a personal character 
have since arisen to make the appointment in any case im- 
proper. To ascertain that will take a little time. There I 
would pause." This, from the head of his official family. 

And the most intimate of his advisers, of the Kitchen 
Cabinet, Major Lewis, is reported to have written to the 
President: "In relation to the principle of rotation in office, 
I embrace this occasion to enter my solemn protest against 
it; not on account of my office, but because I hold it to be 
fraught with the greatest mischief to the country. If ever it 
should be carried out in extenso, the days of this Republic 
will, in my opinion, be numbered; for whenever the impres- 
sion shall become general that the Government is only valu- 
able on account of its offices, the great and paramount inter- 
ests of the country will be lost sight of, and the Government 
itself ultimately destroyed." With the possible exception of 
Eaton, who was a practical politician in the modern sense, 
and Van Buren, to the extent just indicated, none of the 
members of the Cabinet were spoilsmen at heart; and Amos 
Kendall, the genius of the Kitchen Cabinet, would unques- 
tionably have preferred to be spared the pain of turning men 
out of office. To be sure, the jovial but vindictive Duff 
Green, who spent much time at the elbow of Jackson in the 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 69 

early months of the Administration, was insistent upon the 
punishment of enemies, but the responsibihty for the adop- 
tion of the policy rests upon the President himself. 

And the result was that the spring and summer months of 
1829 were filled with the clamor of importunate pleas, not 
unmixed with threats and curses, from the office-seekers. In 
many instances the wives and daughters of the applicants 
fluttered down upon Washington to reenforce the husband 
and the father.^ One of the General's most ardent supporters 
left the capital two days after the inauguration bitterly de- 
nouncing him for his failure to appoint the irate one to a 
position not then vacant. ^ Cabinet officers were harassed, 
bombarded, followed from their offices to their homes and 
back again, until several of them confessed that life had 
become a burden, and they were forced to close their doors 
to applicants until a late hour in the afternoon to find time 
for the transaction of public business.^ Such aspirants as 
were not upon the ground in person were either represented 
by friends who were, or they peppered the members of the 
Cabinet with letters. One peculiarly offensive candidate for 
the collectorship of customs in New York wrote to an equally 
disreputable friend: "No damn rascal who made use of an 
office or its profits for the purpose of keeping Mr. Adams in 
and General Jackson out of power is entitled to the least 
leniency save that of hanging. Whether or not I shall get 
anything in the general scramble for plunder remains to be 
seen, but I rather guess I shall. I know Mr. Ingham slightly, 
and would recommend that you push like the devil if you 
expect anything from that quarter." '' And in the letter 
from Ingham to the seeker of "plunder" we have abundant 
evidence that the advice was accepted: "These [his duties] 
cannot be postponed; and I do assure you that I am com- 

* Hamilton's Reminiscences, 98. 

2 McMaster's History of the People of the United States. 
^ Hamilton's Remiiiiscences, 98. 

* Samuel Swartwout to Jesse Hoyt, in Mackenzie's Life of Van Buren. 



70 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

pelled daily to file away long lists of recommendations, etc., 
without reading them, although I work eighteen hours out 
of the twenty-four with all diligence. The appointments can 
be postponed; other matters cannot; and it was one of the 
prominent errors of the late Administration that they suf- 
fered many important public interests to be neglected, while 
they were cruising about to secure or buy up partisans. This 
we must not do." ^ The same man, having written an in- 
solent letter to Van Buren, was sharply rebuked by him. 
"Here I am," wrote the Secretary of State, "engaged in the 
most intricate and important affairs, which are new to me, 
and upon the successful conduct of which my reputation 
as well as the interests of the country depend, and which 
keep me occupied from early in the morning until late at night. 
And can you think it kind or just to harass me under such 
circumstances with letters which no man of common sensi- 
bility can read without pain? ... I must be plain with 
you. . . . The terms upon which you have seen fit to place 
our intercourse are inadmissible." ^ 

Nor was this clamor for office confined to the more im- 
portant positions — it reached down to the most menial 
places, to those of the gardener, the janitor, and messenger. 
Worse still — men in position to serve were even appealed to 
for place by members of their immediate families. Thus we 
find Amos Kendall writing to his wife: "I had thought before 
of trying to get some place for your father, but I cannot do 
anything until I am myself appointed. I hope in a year or 
two, and perhaps sooner, to find some situation that will 
enable him to live near us, and comfortably." ^ 

Meanwhile the clerks in Washington lived in a state of 
terror. Men who had long worked in harmony, and on terms 
of intimacy, were afraid to talk to one another. Every one 

1 Ingham to Jesse Hoyt, Shepard's Life of Van Buren, 210-11. 
^ Shepard's Life of Van Buren, 210. 
' Amos Kendall's Autobiography, 286. 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 71 

suddenly assumed the aspect of a spy and an informer. "AU 
the subordinate ofBcers of the Government, and even the 
clerks are full of tremblings and anxiety," wrote one woman 
to a correspondent. "To add to this general gloom, we have 
horrible weather, snowstorm after snowstorm, the river 
frozen up and the poor suffering." ^ The majority of the 
subordinates and clerks, many the ne'er-do-wells of distin- 
guished families, assuming that they were assured of a life 
position, had lived up to, and beyond, their meager incomes, 
and suddenly found themselves unfit for other employment 
and confronted with dismissal. ^ And slowly, but surely, the 
dismissals came, leaving many in desperate straits, without 
sufficient funds to reach their homes, and unfit to earn a 
livelihood if they did. Some were driven to desperation. One 
dismissed employee of the Custom House in Boston went 
"in a transport of grief" to Ingham with a plea to be in- 
formed of the cause of his dismissal, only to be told that 
offices were not hereditary.^ One clerk in the War Depart- 
ment cut his throat from ear to ear; another in the State 
Department went stark mad. But all appeals for sympathy 
were met by the proscriptionists with the stern reminder: 
"The exclusive party who were never known to tolerate any 
political opponent raise and reiterate the cry of persecution 
and proscription at every removal that takes place. They 
have provoked retaliation by the most profligate and aban- 
doned course of electioneering; the most unheard-of calumny 
and abuse was heaped upon the candidate of the people; he 
was called by every epithet that could designate crime, and 
the amiable partner of his bosom was dragged before the 
people as worse than a convicted felon. What sympathy do 
men of such a party deserve when complaining that the 
places which they have abused are given to others.^^" ^ 

^ First Fcrrty Years, 283. 

^ Amos Kendall in a letter to his wife describes the extravagant lives of these 
clerks. Autobiography, 278. ^ Schouler's History of the United States, 457. 

* Isaac Hill, quoted in Cyrus Bradley's Life of Hill. 



72 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

A dark picture — and yet only darker than similar pic- 
tures in years to follow because, in 1829, the policy was new 
and caught the office-holders unprepared. So gloomy has the 
picture been painted that the student of the times is prepared 
to learn of a general massacre of the placemen. There was 
no such massacre — no such massacre as followed the elec- 
tion of Lincoln. One is prepared to hear that all the enemies 
of Jackson were driven from office, but, as a matter of fact, 
the majority of the Federal office-holders during his regime 
were unmolested. This could not be said of Roosevelt's Ad- 
ministration, nor of Cleveland's. The exact number of re- 
movals during the first year of Jackson's Administration 
cannot be determined with precision. Schouler,^ while mak- 
ing no attempt definitely to fix the number, says that "some 
have placed the number as high as two thousand." In view 
of the evidence of contemporaries available, it does seem that 
a fairly accurate idea should be obtained. It is interesting to 
observe in this connection that while Jackson's enemies were 
dealing in sweeping generalities, his defenders were furnishing 
figures. 

And among the defenders none is more reliable than 
Thomas H. Benton, whose veracity or personal honesty has 
never been impeached or questioned, and he tells us ^ that 
there were whole classes of office-holders that were not mo- 
lested; that those whose functions were of a judicial nature 
were not disturbed, and that in the departments at Washing- 
ton a majority remained opposed to Jackson through his two 
Administrations. More important still — he tells us that 
Jackson not only left a majority of his enemies in office, but 
that in some instances he actually reappointed personal and 
political enemies where they were "especially efficient offi- 
cers." And he lays stress upon the point that where men, 
who had bitterly fought Jackson in the election, were not re- 
appointed, a hue and cry was raised that they had been de- 

1 Uislory of the United States. , * Thirty Years' View, i, 160. 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 73 

nied a right. Corroborating this, we have the evidence of Amos 
Kendall/ who wrote, after the Administration had been in 
power a year and a half: "He [Jackson] is charged with hav- 
ing turned out of office all who were opposed to him, when a 
majority of the office-holders in Washington are known to 
be in favor of his rivals. In that city the removals have been 
but one seventh of those in office, and most of them for bad 
conduct and character. In the Post-Office Department, toward 
which have been directed the heaviest complaints, the re- 
movals have been only about one sixteenth; in the whole 
Government, one eleventh." And to the evidence of both 
Benton and Kendall, either one of whom would have been 
incapable of deliberate falsehood, we may add the less relia- 
ble, because more prejudiced, evidence of Isaac Hill, given in 
a public speech at Concord in the late summer of 1829. "It 
is worthy of observation," he said, " that at least two thirds 
of the offices of profit at the seat of the National Gov- 
ernment, after the removals thus far made, are still held by 
persons who were opposed to the election of General Jack- 
son." 2 A more detailed study of the removals actually made 
show that, while there were 8600 post-offices in 1829, less 
than 800 postmasters were removed, and these, largely, in 
the more important centers, leaving 7800 undisturbed. 

One of the most serious charges against Jackson in con- 
nection with these removals is that he practiced duplicity, 
reassuring a trembling office-holder one day only to remove 
him, without warning, on the next; and this story is based 
upon what the officer in charge of Indian affairs under 
Adams declares to have been his personal experience. Ac- 
cording to his story, Eaton, his superior officer, suggested 
that he should see the President to meet some charges that 
had been made against him; that on visiting Jackson he had 
made a solemn denial, satisfied the President, and been pre- 
sented by him to the members of his household; that on the 

^ Kendall's Autobiography. * Bradley's Life of Uill, 



74 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

next day a gentleman entered the Indian Office, and, after 
looking around, explained that the place had been offered 
him by the President that morning, but that he did not 
intend to accept; that the position was afterwards offered to 
others, and that the dismissal finally reached him in Phila- 
delphia while there on official business. This places Jackson 
in a sinister light; but our commissioner adds, that one close 
to the Administration said: "Why, sir, everybody knows 
your qualifications for the place, but General Jackson has 
been long satisfied that you are not in harmony with his 
views in regard to the Indians." ^ This raises the question 
whether a President chosen by the people is entitled to his 
own governmental policies or should be forced to accept such 
as may be handed to him by subordinates who received their 
appointments by preference, and not from the hands of the 
people. That this removal was the President's own idea 
may be gathered from the fact that Eaton, Secretary of War, 
under whom Indian affairs came, was not in favor of the dis- 
missal. 

It is worth recording that Van Buren kept his department 
comparatively free from the spoils idea. But even the most 
intense partisan of Jackson will be hard pressed to find any 
proper reason for the spiteful recall of William Henry Harri- 
son from Bogota, where he had just presented his credentials 
as United States Minister to Colombia. This recall was 
opposed very earnestly by Postmaster-General Barry, who 
frankly said to the President: 

" If you had seen him as I did on the Thames, you would, 
I think, let him alone. " 

"You may be right, Barry," Jackson replied. "I reckon 
you are. But thank God I did n't see him there." ^ 

Dark though the picture is from the viewpoint of the civil 
service reformer, there is another possible point of view. All 

* McKinney, The Office-Holder's Sword of Damocles. 
2 Story related by William Allen to Buell. 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 75 

the officials dismissed from places were not high-minded, 
conscientious public servants, for among them were numer- 
ous criminals. The dismissal of Tobias Watkins an Adams 
appointee and a personal friend of the former President, to 
make place for Amos Kendall, was the occasion for a great 
outburst of indignation from the Opposition. Within a month 
the product of the spoils system had discovered frauds on the 
part of the "martyr" to the amount of more than $7000, and 
an arrest followed. He was convicted and served his time in 
prison. Nor was that of Watkins an isolated case. Thus the 
collector at Buffalo ^ had procured false receipts for money 
never paid and was given credit at the Treasury; the collec- 
tor at Key West ^ had permitted an unlawful trade between 
Cuba and Florida; the collector at Bath, Maine,^ was dis- 
missed for personally using $56,315 of the public funds; the 
collector at Portsmouth ^ was shown to have engaged in 
smuggling; the collector at St. Marks ^ was shown to have 
been plundering live-oak from the public lands; the collector 
at Petersburg ^ had used $24,857 of the public money; the 
collector at Perth Amboy ^ had made false returns, appropri- 
ated to his own use $88,000 of the public money, and fled 
to Canada; the collector at Elizabeth City, North CaroUna,* 
had converted $32,791 to his personal use and joined the 
other "martyr" to the spoils system on Canadian soil.^ In 
brief, the introduction of the spoils system had resulted, in 
eighteen months, in the uncovering of peculations in the 
Treasury Department alone of more than $280,000 by men 
whose dismissal from office had called forth the unmeasured 
denunciation of Jackson's enemies, and it is manifestly un- 
fair to withhold these facts while placing emphasis upon the 
"dismissal of collector to make way for Jackson's hench- 
men." 

^ M. M. Cox. 2 William Pinckney. ^ John B. Swanton. * Timothy Upham. 
^ D. L. White. * J. Robertson. ^ R. Arnold. ^ Asa Rogerson. 

' These facts are taken from Ritchie's Richmond Enquirer, and are quoted in 
Professor Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers. 



76 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Thus, throughout the spring and summer of 1829, the 
President and his Cabinet were bored, harassed, and tor- 
tured with importunities for place, denounced as ingrates 
because they left any of the enemies in office, and damned 
by the enemy for every dismissal that was made. 

n 

The spring and summer was the time of the Red Terror. 

The White Terror of retaliation began with the meeting of 
the hostile Senate in December. 

The enemies of Jackson sought the earliest possible oppor- 
tunity to denounce the wholesale dismissals, and the bril- 
liant orators of the Opposition in the House made intemperate 
attacks, while in the Senate Webster spoke against the policy 
of proscription, without, however, adopting the absurd posi- 
tion that the President did not possess the constitutional 
power. ^ The early part of the session was given over to de- 
nunciations of the removals, and to a frankly hostile scrutiny, 
on the part of the Senate, of all nominations requiring on- 
firmation. It foreshadowed the bitter party battles of the 
next eight years by rejecting the nominations of some of 
Jackson's most ardent supporters in the campaign, and by 
taking the ridiculous position that journalists should be ex- 
cluded from appointive office. This proscription, or mas- 
sacre of the editors, was aimed at men, comparatively new to 
public life, who were speedily to develop into the most bril- 
liant and sagacious of the Jacksonian leaders. Long and 
acrimonious executive sessions became the rule of the Senate. 
In some instances, action upon nominations was postponed 
for months under provocative circumstances that were not 
lost upon the fighting figure at the other end of the Avenue. 
The charge was made that a number of the President's nom- 
inees were "vicious characters." It was in the early days of 
this session that a comparatively new Senator, elected upon 

1 Lodge's Ldje oj Webster, 167. 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 77 

the supposition that he would support the President and his 
pohcies, and destined to be the only member of the Senate to 
reahze personally upon that body's venomous hostility to the 
Administration, stepped forth to organize and direct the 
fight against the confirmation of nominees in whom the Pres- 
ident was deeply interested. John Tyler led the first on- 
slaught on the Administration. 

It is important to pause to contemplate Tyler's character 
and career, because he typifies those Democrats who were so 
soon to enter into cooperation with the Whigs in opposition, 
and because history has been unjust in underestimating both 
his capacity and courage. We shall find him pursuing Jack- 
son throughout the greater part of his Presidency, and pay- 
ing the penalty to the people with a manliness which found 
little emulation among men to whom history has been more 
gracious. 

John Tyler was the scion of a family distinguished in law 
and in politics. His father was a fine Revolutionary figure, 
and one of the first lawyers in Virginia. He inherited his 
father's ability, predilections, and prejudices. Within three 
months after his admission to the bar, he was employed in 
every important case in the county, and when, at the age of 
twenty-seven, he abandoned his practice to enter Congress, 
his income was $2000 a year, which was $1300 more than 
Webster's at the same age.^ On reaching Washington, he was 
cordially welcomed by the Madisons into the White House 
circle. He was fond of the society of the President's house, 
disliked the French cooking, but found consolation in the 
excellent champagne of which he was very fond.^ He found 
Clay, with whom he was to be associated in the fights against 
Jackson, in the Speaker's chair, and fell under the spell of 
his fascination. It was then, too, that he formed his intense 
admiration for Calhoun. 

' Professor Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 23G. 
* Letter to his wife, in Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 288. 



78 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

His hostility to Jackson and Jacksonian methods was first 
manifested in his support of the resolutions censuring the 
General for his course in Florida. There is no doubt that at 
this time he had formed a deep-seated prejudice against the 
military hero. "We are engaged with Jackson and the Pres- 
ident," he wrote home at the time. "I do not hesitate to 
say that the constitutional powers of the House of Represen- 
tatives have been violated in the capture and detention of 
Pensacola and the Barancas; that Jackson overstepped his 
orders; and that the President has improperly approved his 
proceedings, and that the whole are culpable." ^ But there 
was a more powerful and less personal reason for his enmity 
to the Jackson Administration, which developed during this 
period. He had already become a sectionalist. Like Calhoun 
in later life, and Webster in 1820, he began to sense a struggle 
between the sections over the balance of power. Thus early 
he commenced to question the permanency of the Union. In 
the Missouri fight, in a strong speech against the restriction 
of slavery, he alone, among all participating on his side, 
advanced the proposition that the Congress possessed no 
constitutional power to pass a law prohibiting slavery in the 
Territories. 2 We find him writing ^ that "men talk of the 
dissolution of the Union with perfect nonchalance and indif- 
ference." When, in his thirty-first year, he voluntarily retired 
to private life to retrieve his fortunes, he had made an im- 
pression so profound that it was predicted that he would rise 
to high station.^ 

When in 1827 he became a candidate for the Senate against 
the brilliant and vitriolic John Randolph of Roanoke, we 
find the elements working that were to ripen him for the 
break with the Jackson Administration, and for association 
with Clay's party of incongruities and nondescripts. After 

• Letter to Dr. Curtis, in LettcTs and Times of the Tylers, i, 305. 
2 National Intelligencer, Sept. 15, 1859. ' To Dr. Curtis. 

• The prediction of Justice Baldwin of the Supreme Court. 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 79 

the inauguration of Adams, he had written Clay commending 
his action in throwing his support to the Puritan, assuring 
him of his contempt for the "bargain " story, and unnecessa- 
rily adding a fling at Jackson: "I do not believe that the so- 
ber and reflecting people of Virginia would have been so far 
dazzled by military renown as to have conferred their suffrage 
upon a mere soldier — one acknowledged on every hand to be 
of little value as a civilian." ^ When Randolph so viciously 
attacked Adams and Clay on the "bargain" story, Tyler be- 
came his most uncompromising foe. In some manner his let- 
ter to Clay found its way into the newspapers, resulting in 
much feeling, letter-writing, charges and counter-charges and 
journalizing, and the supporters of Tyler interpreted the use 
of the letter as an attempt to coerce him into support of Jack- 
son in 1828. If such was the purpose, it failed. He was 
elected without having pledged himself, and at a compli- 
mentary dinner after his election, he referred to Jackson in a 
sneering fashion. 

And now we begin to understand the underlying causes 
that took Tyler and other Southern Democrats out of the 
party and into the Whig ranks during the Jackson period. 
On reaching Washington in December, 1827, we find him 
writing to a correspondent: "My hopes are increased from 
the following fact . . . that in the nature of things. General 
Jackson must surround himself by a Cabinet composed of 
men advocating, to a great extent, the doctrines so dear to 
us. Pass them in review before you — Clinton, Van Buren, 
Tazewell, Cheves, Macon, P. P. Barbour, men who, in the 
main, concur with us in sentiment. Furthermore, General 
Jackson will have to encounter a strong opposition. He will 
require an active support at our hands. Should he abuse Vir- 
ginia by setting at nought her political sentiments, he will 
find her at the head of the opposition, and he will probably 
experience the fate of J. Q. A." ^ The Cabinet, when an- 

^ Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 360. 

* Letter to John Rutherford, in Letters and Times oj the Tylers, i, 378. 



80 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

nounced, does not seem to have satisfied him, albeit Van Bu- 
ren, of whose views on slavery extension he appears to have 
been misinformed, was a member. The presence of Berrien 
and Branch ought, perhaps, to have reassured him, but they 
were a minority, and they did not satisfy Calhoun, of whom 
they were devoted disciples. 

Thus, from the very beginning of the Jackson regime, Ty- 
ler was suspicious, and ripe for the Opposition. In the spoils 
system he found a pretext for dissatisfaction, and he pro- 
ceeded to develop this into a rather petty persecution. It 
would be a mistake to underrate the eflPect of his opposition. 
He was highly respected by his colleagues. His dignity, 
courtliness, urbanity, and ease gave him a certain social pres- 
tige. He was an interesting and likable companion, and his 
polished conversation had impelled an English novelist ^ to 
describe it as superior to that of any one he had met in Amer- 
ica. His appearance was not against him. Tall and slender, 
of patrician mould, his Roman nose, firm mouth, broad and 
lofty brow, and honest blue eyes combined to give him a dis- 
tinction that marked him in an assembly. He was not a mere 
professional politician of a type to be developed later in the 
Republic. His letters to his daughter ^ concerning her stud- 
ies, on poetry, fiction, and history, denote a discriminating 
student and lover of literature. It was this occasional detach- 
ment from the political world which made it possible for him, 
during the famous debate on the Foot Resolution, to enter- 
tain himself in the Senate Chamber in the reading of Moore's 
"Life of Byron." We shall now observe him launch the 
White Terror against the Red. 

Ill 
Among the nominations, mostly for comparatively minor po- 
sitions, sent to the Senate by Jackson were those of a "batch 
of editors."^ Strangely enough, this seems to have rather 

* G. P. R. James. ^ Letters and Times of the Tylers. 

^ * Tyler's term, in Letters and Times oj the Tylers, i, 408. 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 81 

affronted the somewhat ponderous dignity of that body. So 
strongly did it then impress the Senate that it has made an 
ugly impression upon a number of historians. Even Schou- 
ler ^ is distressed to find so many mere "press writers" on 
the list. Whether the fact that they were mere editors was 
enough to make them "infamous characters," we are left to 
conjecture. The secret of the strange antipathy to a class 
long conceded to be among the most influential of any nation 
is probably to be found in the fact that until this time the 
lawyers were conceded a monopoly in public station. There 
was a reason for Jackson's change of policy, and it grew out 
of the organization of party and the democratization of gov- 
ernment. Unlike his predecessors, he had not depended for 
support, nor did he expect to look exclusively for support to 
the professional politicians and the wealthy. As a candidate 
his appeal had been — for the first time in American history 
■ — to the people. As a President he proposed to look to the 
same quarter. With the people actually established as the 
ultimate power in the State, according to the theory of 
American institutions, he was not unmindful of the necessity 
of reaching the people with his case. He was the first Presi- 
dent fully to appreciate the power of the press. He could see 
no reason why men capable of presenting and popularizing 
a policy or principle should be excluded from the privilege 
of helping put it in operation. 

In the campaign of 1828 he had been opposed by the 
greater portion of the press, but he had found champions — 
men of capacity and talent, who had fought the good fight 
for him, and not without effect. The assumption that all 
these men were bribed by the promise of place would be a 
violent one indeed. And the "batch of editors" whose 
names he sent to the Senate were men who had long been 
attached to the cause that Jackson personified. Some had 
more recently allied themselves with the cause, but in every 

* History oj the United States, 



82 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

instance there was a sound reason for the change of front, 
and in these cases it does not appear that they had met the 
President in the campaign or had any expectations. 

And these men, having received recess appointments, were 
at their posts or on their way. Those already at their posts 
had given ample proof of their capacity. One, against whom 
considerable bitterness was felt, had speedily uncovered the 
peculations of a highly respectable predecessor who was not a 
"press writer," and that gentleman was languishing in the 
penitentiary. The Senate, apparently, did not consider this a 
service to the State worthy of reward. While there can be no 
doubt that the partisan enemies of Jackson were delighted at 
the opportunity personally to affront him, and while it is 
certain that Clay's friends were anxious to punish one, and 
Adams's friends to humiliate another, the actual conspiracy 
to defeat the confirmation of the editors originated with John 
Tyler, in close cooperation with Senator Tazewell of Virginia 
— who was still smarting under his defeat in the contest 
with Van Buren for the secretaryship of State. 

The editors who thus fell under the haughty displeasure 
of the Senate were Major Henry Lee, James B. Gardner, 
Moses Dawson, Mordecai M. Noah, Amos Kendall, and 
Isaac Hill. 

Charges of a personal nature were made against Lee, who 
had been appointed consul-general to Algiers. He was a 
half-brother of Robert E. Lee and a man of brilliant parts. 
During the campaign he had lived with Jackson at the 
Hermitage "writing for his election some of the finest cam- 
paign papers ever penned in this country." ^ One who saw 
him there at the time has recorded his impressions. "He 
was not handsome, as his half-brother, Robert E. Lee, but 
rather ugly in face — a mouth without a line of the bow of 
Diana about it, and nose, not clean-cut and classic, but 
rather meaty, and, if we may use the word,* blood meaty'; 

^ 1 Henry S. Wise, Seven Decades of the Union, 99. 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 83 

but he was one of the most attractive men in conversation 
we ever hstened to." ^ He had served in the Virginia House 
of Delegates with Tyler, and had been a college mate. 
"Moreover," writes Tyler, "I regarded him as a man of 
considerable intellectual attainments and of a high order 
of talent." ^ But this did not operate in his favor. He had 
assisted in the writing of Jackson's inaugural address, and 
is said to have been mostly responsible for its literary form. 
The fact that his morals were not considered impeccable was 
sufficient as a pretext, and the news of his rejection reached 
him in Paris, where he died. Tyler afterwards protested 
that he had found it painful to vote against his confirmation, 
and had expressed his opinion of Lee's "innocence of certain 
more aggravated additions to the charge under which he 
labored." 

Isaac Hill, of the "New Hampshire Patriot," was easily 
slaughtered on the ground that during the campaign he had 
"slandered Mrs. Adams." In addition to the publication of 
his paper, the most vigorous and clever Jacksonian organ in 
New England, he conducted a publishing house, and his 
offense lay in having published a book in which Mrs. Adams 
was described as an "English woman" with little sympathy 
for American institutions. The hollowness of this excuse is 
evident in the fact that several Senators who had been 
shocked at this offense had regaled drawing-rooms with 
jokes of Mrs. Jackson's pipe, and on Mrs. Eaton's being a 
proper "lady in waiting" for the President's wife since 
"birds of a feather flock together." ^ The real reason for his 
rejection was that he had incurred the bitter enmity of the 
Opposition by his telling paragraphs during the campaign. 
Immediately after his rejection, two Senators hastened to 
the home of John Quincy Adams with the news, and the old 

^ Henry S. Wise, Seiwn Decades of the Union, 99. 

2 Letter to Richard T. Brown, in Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 409. 

8 Mrs, Smith, in First Forty Years, p. 253, refers to such conversations. 



84 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

man made the comment in his diary that night that Hill 
"was the editor of the 'New Hampshire Patriot,' one of the 
most slanderous newspapers against the late Administration, 
and particularly against me, in the country." 

Mordecai M. Noah, editor of the "National Advocate" of 
New York City, appointed surveyor and inspector of the 
port of New York, appears to have tickled the risibles of the 
Senators of the Opposition, though his distinguished career 
entitles him to the respect of posterity. One important and 
memorable service to the Nation should have made him 
immune from the common hate. Sixteen years before he had 
been sent as consul to Tunis with a special mission to Algiers. 
We had been paying an annual tribute to Algiers for the 
privilege of navigating the Mediterranean, and Noah, the 
journalist, had denounced the practice and declared that the 
money could be better spent in the building of warships. He 
succeeded on his Algerian mission in ransoming American 
prisoners who were being held in slavery, but such was the 
bigotry of the time that, after his work was done, he was 
recalled on the flimsy pretense that his Jewish religion was 
impossible in Tunis. At the time he was honored by Jackson, 
he was not only distinguished by his public service, but 
because of his journalistic genius, and he had written his 
"Travels in England, France, Spain, and the Barbary 
States." He deserves his place in Morais's "Eminent Israel- 
ites of the 19th Century." But he had rendered valuable 
service to Jackson in the campaign, and the bigoted members 
of the Senate rejected him with much hilarity. 

The first setback the Opposition received came in the con- 
sideration of the nomination of Amos Kendall, of the "Ken- 
tucky Argus." He had, at the time, served for months with 
marked ability as auditor of the Treasury, rooting out old 
and vicious practices, uncovering the crimes of his predeces- 
sor, but he had left the camp of Clay to do yeoman service 
for Jackson, and that was quite enough. Adams himself was 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 85 

deeply interested in his humiliation. In the midst of the 
campaign he had been consulted by Clay touching upon 
"testimony given by Amos Kendall before the Senate of 
Kentucky intended to support charges against Mr. Clay of 
corrupt bargaining with me"; and, on Clay's representation, 
no doubt, describes the editor as "one of those authors to 
let, whose profligacy is the child of his poverty." But the 
vote on Kendall was a tie, and Calhoun cast the deciding 
vote in his favor. 

Tyler was delighted with his work. "On Monday we took 
the printers in hand," he wrote. "Kendall was saved by the 
casting vote of the Vice President . . . Hendricks [Indiana], 
who was supported by the last Administration, was induced 
to vote for him and in that way he was saved. Out of those 
presented to the Senate, but two squeezed through, and that 
with the whole power of the Government here thrown in the 
scale." ^ Kendall tells an interesting story which shows that 
the friends of Calhoun were quietly at work to convince the 
rejected editors that their humiliation had been brought 
about through the secret influence of Van Buren. Even then 
the Little Magician, as Van Buren was called, was considered 
the greatest obstacle in the way of the South Carolinian's 
progress toward the White House, and it was the evident 
purpose to send the editors, miserable "press writers" 
though they were, back to their papers to fight the aspira- 
tions of Van Buren. Before the vote was taken on Kendall, 
he was approached by Duff Green, of the "National Tele- 
graph," Calhoun's organ, and assured that the Van Buren 
influence was responsible for the fight against him. This 
aroused the curiosity of the clever Kendall, who "had never 
heard of such influence," and he instantly surmised the mean- 
ing of the message. Thus, when Green, predicting his rejec- 
tion, suggested that the Kentuckian could return to the "Ar- 
gus," the latter replied that he would remain in Washington 
in that event. 

' Letter to R. W. Christian, in Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 408. 



86 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

The effect of these rejections on Jackson was like a slap in 
the face. It aroused all the lion in his nature. He had grown 
fond of the editors who had so vigorously fought his battles, 
and his heart was set on their reward. It was the Senate's 
first challenge, and it was instantly accepted. It was clear 
that nothing could be done for Lee, where the vote was unan- 
imous, but Jackson decided to renominate Noah, and we find 
Tyler writing to Tazewell: "The President this morning re- 
nominated Noah. This is a prelude to Hill's renomination. 
Your presence, I apprehend, would be immaterial, as the re- 
sult of any vote upon these subjects would not be varied. 
Monday is fixed for the consideration of Noah's case." ^ On 
the second attempt, Noah was confirmed, like Kendall, with 
the casting vote of Calhoun. 

But the President had other plans for his favorite, Hill, 
over whose sharp retorts the General had so heartily chuckled 
during the campaign. Webb, the editor of the "Courier and 
Enquirer" of New York, denounced in his paper the Senate's 
rejection of Hill. "Isaac Hill," he wrote, "is a printer and 
was the editor of the 'New Hampshire Patriot.' He was al- 
ways the friend of his country and its republican institutions, 
and when that country, during the late war, was about to be 
sold by traitors to the enemy; when the war was declared 
wicked and unjustifiable, and the Hartford Convention med- 
itated the formation of a separate treaty with England, his 
voice was heard in the Granite State and in the mountains of 
Vermont, animating the people and arousing them to a just 
sense of their danger, and the blessings of freedom. He was a 
thorn in the side of the Tories, and though living in the hot- 
bed of the Opposition, he pursued his course fearlessly, inde- 
pendently, and successfully." Writing from Jefferson Bar- 
racks, General Henry Leavenworth entered his protest, a 
non-partisan one: "Isaac Hill with his 'New Hampshire 
Patriot* did more than any one man known to me to put 

* Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 408. 



THE RED TERROR AND THE WHITE 87 

down the 'peace societies' during the war," he wrote, and 
he described enhstments under him following Hill's patriotic 
exhortations. 

It is more than probable that these protests were not unin- 
spired, and that the fine Italian hand of Amos Kendall, who 
had already become the managerial genius of the Adminis- 
tration, was in them. Certain it is that the most effective 
move was that of Kendall in writing to the Democracy of 
New Hampshire that the President "has entire confidence in 
Mr. Hill and looks upon his rejection as a blow aimed at him- 
self," and putting it up to the legislature to "wipe away the 
stigma cast upon this just and true man, by the unjust and 
cruel vote of the Senate." The New Hampshire Democrats 
understood, and a little later Isaac Hill walked down the 
aisle of the Senate that had humiliated and rejected him to 
take the oath as a Senator of the United States. 

Thus the Senate's fight against Jackson began at the earli- 
est possible moment. Clay had begun his denunciations of 
the Administration before it was three weeks old; and the 
Senate sought an opportunity personally to affront the Presi- 
dent before he had announced a policy or a programme. 



CHAPTER IV 

JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN'^ 

I 

The definite break between Calhoun and Jackson was one of 
the most dramatic and far-reaching in its pohtical efiFects of 
any similar quarrel in American history. It furnished Clay 
with new material for the building of his party. It decisively 
committed the party of Jackson to the defense of the Union. 
It eliminated Calhoun from the list of presidential possibili- 
ties, dropped the curtain on the South Carolinian that the 
Nation had known for two decades, and raised it on another 
with whom the world is well acquainted. It divided his life 
into two distinct parts. It made Martin Van Buren Presi- 
dent. 

The Calhoun who was to become one of Clay's most vitu- 
perative and intemperate lieutenants in the fight against the 
Administration differs as radically from the ambitious politi- 
cian who had intrigued for the election of Jackson as the 
Webster of the Great Debate differed from the Webster of 
the Rockingham Resolutions. 

The greatest biographer of the Carolinian ^ fixes the time 
that he became the personification of the slavery cause as 
1830 — the date of the quarrel — and says that "up to that 
time he is, in spite of his uncommonly brilliant career, only an 
able politician of the higher and nobler order, having many 
peers and even a considerable number of superiors." Of the 
three great figures, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, he was 
admittedly the strongest intellectually, and the one most un- 
mistakably touched with genius. Nature made him a states- 
man. Swept into Congress on the wave of patriotic enthu- 

1 Von Hoist. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 89 

siasm following the attack on the Chesapeake, his audacity, 
independent thinking, militancy, and genius combined to 
place him in the very lead of the party of Young America 
that clamored for the War of 1812. He sounded the first 
clear oflBcial war note in his report on that part of Madison's 
Message dealing with our relations with England ; and after 
the delivery of his first war speech one of the leading editors 
of the day hailed "this young Carolinian as one of the master 
spirits who stamp their names upon the age in which they 
live." ^ In his haughty assumption of equality with the old- 
est and most experienced members of the Congress, he sug- 
gests the younger Pitt. His war speeches were classics of ar- 
gumentation, sober, and yet pulsating with patriotic passion. 
If any sectional thought crossed his mind then, it never 
touched his tongue. He was a superb Nationalist — one of 
the most splendid figures of his time. Summoned into Mon- 
roe's Cabinet as Secretary of War, he disclosed a high order 
of executive as well as legislative ability. Finding the depart- 
ment in confusion, he brought order out of chaos, and estab- 
lished system. A former oflScer of the great Napoleon was 
impressed with the resemblance between Calhoun's plan of 
army organization and that of the Corsican.^ Even his 
friends were agreeably astonished at his aptitude for or- 
ganzation and general executive duties. And this furthered 
his presidential plans, and a strong party in the Congress 
perfected plans to advance him to the White House on the 
expiration of Monroe's term. 

It is not now fashionable to think of him as a designing and 
ambitious politician, but one of his biographers has com- 
mented on his tendency to stoop "to cover with an approv- 
ing and admiring smile a resentment which is lurking in the 
corner of his heart, and on the other side to break off all social 
intercourse with old and highly respected associates, merely 

* Ritchie, in the Richmond Enquirer. 

^ General Bernard, chief of staff of the engineers. 



90 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

because others whose services he wished to secure might not 
like these connections." ^ And yet, despite his efforts, his 
candidacy appears to have made no impression upon the 
country. Among the pubHcists he was strong; but the people 
were not impressed. He was the original "young man's can- 
didate," but this weakened him among the older and more 
important leaders. "His age, or rather his youth," wrote 
one,^ "at the present moment is a formidable objection to his 
elevation to the chair." Nevertheless, placing his reliance on 
the younger element, he pushed on. Even in Massachusetts 
he was charged with having "newspapers set up" to support 
him.* Certain it is that Webster favored his election as long 
as it seemed possible of achievement, and when failure there 
seemed certain, the greatest of his future rivals earnestly 
urged his election to the Vice-Presidency.^ To the latter posi- 
tion he was elected through a combination of the friends of 
Adams and Jackson. 

And now we find the presidential fever consuming him. He 
becomes the practical, scheming, not overly scrupulous poli- 
tician — a role he is not popularly supposed to have ever 
filled. From the very beginning he set to work to undermine 
the Administration of his chief. His apologists explain that 
when the "bargain" story was advanced, he was forced to 
choose between the two factions that had combined to elect 
him, and preferred to go with the Jackson forces.^ Whatever 
his motive, he entered into no half-hearted opposition. This 
notable activity against Adams and in favor of Jackson has 
been ascribed to a presumptive premonition that the latter 
was certain to reach the Presidency, and, in view of Jackson's 
assurance that he would be satisfied with one term, Calhoun 
calculated that the defeat of Adams would shorten his period 

^ Von Hoist, 58. ' Joseph Story. 

' Adams's Memoirs. 

* Webster wrote to his brother: "I hope all of New England will support Mr. 
Calhoun for the Vice-Presidency." (Webster's Correspondence.) 
^ Vou llolst, C2-G3. "" 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 91 

of waiting by four years. ^ So ardently was he panting for the 
Presidency at this time that he summoned his friends to 
assist in the estabhshment of a paper, impatiently brushed 
aside the objections as to cost, and calhng Duff Green to the 
editorship of the "National Telegraph," created the most 
powerful party organ that had existed in this country up to 
that time. 2 Less than a year after Adams's inauguration, 
Calhoun was actively organizing for his defeat. We find him 
inviting a Philadelphian to his chamber in the Capitol to urge 
him to cooperate with the Opposition party on the ground 
that "because of the manner in which it came into power it 
must be defeated at all hazards, regardless of its measures." ' 
This insistence on the defeat of the Administration, "regard- 
less of its measures," was the reasoning of an ambitious politi- 
cian, none too scrupulous, in a pinch, in his methods. The 
rest is known — how Calhoun threw his influence to Jackson 
in 1828, and was reelected to the Vice-Presidency with the 
hero of the Hermitage. Close students of the period are now 
convinced that preliminary to this alliance an agreement had 
been made that Calhoun was to succeed to the Presidency 
after four years. 

At this time he was in the full maturity of his wonderful 
power, and the future must have seemed secure. Quincy, 
who saw him about this time, found him "a striking looking 
man, with thick black hair brushed back defiantly," and he 
comments on Calhoun's policy of cultivating and fascinating 
all young men visiting the National capital.^ The world is 
too familiar with the tragic features of the great Carolinian 
to require a description. The rugged carving, the low broad 
brow, the spare frame almost amounting to attenuation, 
the penetrating gaze of the "glorious pair of yellow-brown 
shining eyes," the bushy brows and the sunken sockets — 

^ Sargent's Public Men and EvenL% i, 108. 2 ihid.^ 109. 

^ Sargent tells of his interview with Joseph Mcllvaine, Recorder of Philadelphia, 
1, 108. 

* Quincy 's Figures of the Past. 



92 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Calhoun looked unlike any other man in history.^ He was 
a commanding figure at the time of the quarrel which was to 
change the entire course of his life, and to alter his political 
character. 

n 

We have seen that Calhoun was annoyed with Jackson over 
matters of patronage, but the development of the quarrel to 
the breaking point is to be traced in the story of a debate and 
two dinners. 

While it has not been customary to attach any party signifi- 
cance to the Webster-Hayne debate, it was conducted along 
party lines and was a party battle. To such a seasoned ob- 
server of parliamentary fights as Thomas H. Benton, it was 
little more than a party skirmish. ^ Even Webster, at the 
time, evidently looked upon Hayne's assault upon him as 
political in its character. Some time before he had sent Sena- 
tor Wliite of Florida to Calhoun to warn him that by permit- 
ting his friends to attack New England, he was playing into 
the hands of Van Buren, who would capture New England 
States that would otherwise go to the South Carolinian. And 
Calhoun, no less alive to the political significance of the prom- 
ised fight, had, according to White's story to Adams, been 
impressed. "He said Calhoun seemed to be considerably at a 
loss what to do," wrote Adams at the time; "that he did not 
know what things were coming to; that he had no feeling of 
unfriendliness to me, and would by now have visited me but 
for fear of being misrepresented; that if I had consulted him 
four years ago, and not have appointed Clay Secretary of 
State, I should now have been President of the United 
States." ^ This purported warning of Webster to Calhoun is 

* Jefferson Davis in his Memoirs describes Calhoun's eyes as "yellow-brown," 
while his contemporary bio^apher, Jenkins, tells us they were dark blue. It seems 
unlikely that Davis, who knew him well, could have been mistaken. 

2 Benton's Thirty Years" View, i, 1^-40. 

3 Adams's Memoirs. Feb. 28, 1830. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 93 

given color by the former's action during his great speech, in 
turning his fine black eyes upon the latter, in the chair, while 
quoting: 

"A barren sceptre in their gripe 
Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand. 
No son of their's succeeding " 

— a prophecy said to have caused Calhoun to "change ex- 
pression and show some agitation." ^ 

Whether the attack on Webster and New England was con- 
ceived for the purpose of serving a party or sectional end, the 
records show that the Administration leaders who partici- 
pated in the debate, Grundy, White, and Livingston, fol- 
lowed the Webster-Hayne exchange with elaborate indict- 
ments of New England Federalism, and John Forsyth, the 
real floor leader of the Administration, while contributing lit- 
tle to the discussion, was notably busy upon the floor. That 
the party phase was uppermost in the minds of the politicians 
and the press immediately following the verbal duel of the 
giants may be deduced from the nature of the press com- 
ments. One paper, having a correspondent at the capital, 
summed up the result: "The opposition party generally con- 
tend that Mr. Webster overthrew Mr. Hayne; while, on the 
other hand, the result is triumphantly hailed by the friends 
of the Administration as a decisive victory over the eastern 
giant." 2 And in keeping with the theory that the mass at- 
tack on New England Federalism was to capture that section 
for the Administration, 3 we find the speech of Hayne being 
extensively circulated over the New England States. There 
can be no doubt that Webster literally dragged in the really 
great issue of the Union, that Hayne was forced to accept 
that diversion, and by so doing gave to the debate its im- 
mortal character. Jackson was delighted with Hayne's first 

— ^ March's Reminiscences of Congresa. ' Philadelphia Gazette. 

^ March's idea. 



94 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

speech, and interested in the second, but on a more mature 
consideration Webster's glowing defense of the Union went 
home to the old patriot at the White House. It is because of 
the effect of the debate upon Jackson's Administration, and 
not merely because it occurred during his Presidency, that we 
cannot dismiss it as remote from the party politics of the 
time. 

It should be borne in mind that the Daniel Webster who 
emerged from the debate was not the same public character 
who had entered it. By that epochal utterance he obliterated 
the one vulnerable point in his career — for the Daniel Webster 
of 1829 was vulnerable. He entered politics in New Hamp- 
shire as a Federalist — "liberal Federalist," to use the phrase 
of his biographer.^ Notwithstanding this "liberality," he 
was to become considerably smirched by party loyalty dur- 
ing the war with England. This war was the occasion for his 
first public utterance, when, on July 4, 1812, he bitterly de- 
nounced the war with true Federalistic fervor at Portsmouth. 
This speech, printed and circulated for propaganda purposes 
against the war, ran into two editions, and led to his selection 
as a delegate to the notorious Rockingham County mass 
meeting. Here it fell to him to prepare the address known to 
history as the "Rockingham Memorial" to which the advo- 
cates of the sinister doctrine of Nullification pointed approv- 
ingly up to the Civil War. The notoriety of this document 
resulted in his election to Congress, where his record was 
everything it should not have been. 

His first move was to heckle the President by calling upon 
him for information as to the time and manner of the repeal 
of the French decrees — which was in line with his previous 
denunciation of France. The enemies of the War of 1812 
were bitter against the French, just as the enemies of the 
World War, over a century later, were bitter against the 
English. And while his country was at war with a powerful 

^ Henry Cabot Lodge. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 95 

foe, he voted against taxes necessary for the waging of it; 
fought the compulsory draft of men for the miserable little 
army on the ground that the States alone had the right to re- 
sort to conscription; and even threatened the dissolution of 
the Union with the suggestion that "it would be the solemn 
duty of the State Governments to protect their authority 
over their own State militia, and to interpose between their 
citizens and arbitrary power." He stubbornly resisted the 
attempt to extend martial law to all citizens suspected of 
treason; actually declaimed against the bill to encourage en- 
listments; opposed the war policy of the war Administration 
and urged a defensive warfare. And, of course, he intemper- 
ately denounced the embargo. 

This course made him by long odds the most conspicuous 
Federalist in the House, and while he opposed the Hartford 
Convention, he does not appear to have looked upon it as 
seditious or treasonable, and as late as 1820, in his Boston 
speech, utterly ignored by his biographers, he practically pro- 
claimed the right of secession. In brief, throughout the sec- 
ond war against England he was found just on the safe side 
of the line of sedition. His position at the time was notorious, 
and Isaac Hill, in the "New Hampshire Patriot," was openly 
accusing him of trying to dissolve the Union and to array the 
North against the South. 

Thus, the Webster that Hayne assailed had skeletons in his 
closet. His reputation as an orator was greater than that of 
any living American. Behind him was his Plymouth Oration 
which had rivaled Washington Irving as a best seller;^ his 
Dartmouth College plea, which had moved John Marshall to 
tears; his Bunker Hill Address, which had been read with 
avidity in England and translated into French; and his plea 
for Greek independence, which had been read all over the 
world. Such was the Daniel Webster who was challenged by 
Hayne — or the Democrats — or the Administration. 

^ Lodge's Life of Webster, 118. 



96 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Robert Y. Hayne was a knight of Southern chivalry, who 
in youth, Hke the ancient Greeks and Romans, had studied 
oratory as an art, from his first boyhood triumph moving 
with dash and audacity to his destiny, and at thirty-two en- 
tered the Senate of the United States.^ His reputation as an 
orator previous to the great debate promised that the contest 
would not be one-sided. His character as man and publicist 
commanded universal respect and even the affection of 
political friend and foe alike. ^ And he entered the contest 
with one distinct advantage over his adversary : there were 
skeletons in Webster's closet; there were none in Hayne's. 

m 

There is no doubt but that on the day Hayne opened his at- 
tack, he was in fine fettle. Never had the Senate Chamber 
presented a more inspiring scene. Before him, with folded 
arms, sat the most coveted prey in the covey of the Opposi- 
tion. From the Vice-President's chair, Calhoun, the god of 
his idolatry, encouraged him with the compliment of a happy 
expression. About him were grouped the prominent "Jack- 
son Senators" ready to encourage him with their approving 
smiles.^ There was a gallant and confident air in the orator 
as he " dashed into the debate like a Mameluke cavalry upon 
a charge." ^ In a moment he was in the full swing of his elo- 
quence, and, as he poured forth his sarcasm, and marshaled 
his facts against the Federalism of New England, and threw 
wide the door reveahng the Webster skeletons in the closet, 
the realization was borne to all that they were listening to 
one of the most effective speeches ever heard in the Senate. 

' Senator Foote, in A Casket of Reminiscences, 34-36, describes his early struggles 
to overcome defects in enunciation, and Ludwig Lewisohn, in his History of Litera- 
ture in South Carolina, refers to his first oratorical triumph. 

' March, an idolater of Webster, in his Reminiscences of Congress, is almost 
extravagant in his praise, and Benton, in his Thirty Years' View, is even more 
complimentary. 

' Sargent's Public Men and Events, i, 172. 

* March's Rcminiaceaccs of Congress. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 97 

The Democrats were jubilant — the enemy concerned — 
Webster was a mask, as unresponsive as the sphinx. The 
blows at Federalism — at New England — at Webster, fell 
like the hammer on an anvil. The speaker's deadly parallel 
on Webster and his tariff record was a superb piece of clever 
oratory. His analysis of New England Federalism in the War 
of 1812 was a stinging indictment — it was a conviction and 
a sentence. 

The Democrats and Jackson Senators were naturally de- 
lighted. This was a political speech that Hayne was making, 
and he was crucifying Federalism and parading the closet 
skeletons of its greatest living champion, and shaming the 
section that refused to be converted to the new faith. And 
when the orator fell into the trap cleverly prepared for him by 
Webster, and, ostentatiously encouraged by Calhoun with 
numerous notes of suggestions sent by the pages from the 
chair, entered upon his exposition of the theory of Nullifica- 
tion, it is improbable that the delighted Jackson Senators 
caught the full significance of the departure. Duff Green, in 
the "National Telegraph," the Calhoun organ, then support- 
ing the Administration, was in a frenzy of delight. Andrew 
Jackson, who had kept in close touch with the debate, send- 
ing Major Lewis daily to the Senate Chamber, and was im- 
mensely pleased with the political or party features of the 
speech, wrote the orator a cordial letter of congratulation. 

The depression of the Federalists, the New Englanders, 
and the Opposition generally, was correspondingly great. A 
professional observer,^ writing of the event in later years, tells 
us that "the immediate impression from the speech was most 
assuredly disheartening to the cause Mr. Webster upheld." 
And Henry Cabot Lodge accepts the statement that "men 
of the North and of New England could be known in Wash- 
ington in those days by their indignant and dejected looks and 
downcast eyes." ^ 

^ March's Reminiscences of Congress. ' Lodge's Life oS Webster, 177. 



98 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

The day Webster began his reply was the coldest of the 
winter, a biting wind filling the streets with clouds of dust, 
and Margaret Bayard Smith, sitting before a blazing fire, 
and free from the interruption of callers because "almost 
every one is thronging to the Capitol to hear Mr. Webster 
reply to Colonel Hayne's attack on him and his party," 
wrote regretfully of the growing tendency of women to 
monopolize the seats both in the gallery and upon the 
floor. ^ The reader is too familiar with that splendid oration 
to justify, for our purposes, any analysis or extended refer- 
ence to the substance. His replies to Hayne's attacks on the 
war policy of the Federalists, and upon his own inconsisten- 
cies, while clever, were not, in truth, convincing answers, and 
it was upon these points that the Jackson Senators were 
centering their attention. Thus it is not remarkable that 
the full import of his speech was momentarily lost upon the 
heated partisans. Even Benton, refusing to believe that the 
Union was in danger, or in any way involved in the debate, 
did not care for Webster's peroration, finding the sentiment 
nobly and oratorically expressed, "but too elaborately and 
too artistically composed for real grief in the presence of a 
great calamity — of which calamity I saw no sign." ^ To 
Benton, the debate was a party combat and nothing more. 
Nor is there anything in the notes recorded by Adams to 
indicate that he was impressed with the Webster speech 
except as a defense of Federalism.' The party issue had, for 
the moment, obscured all else. If in Charleston, the home of 
Hayne, Webster became the idol of the old Federalists, and 
of the Democratic mechanics, Hayne won the affectionate 
admiration of the merchants of Boston, who had his speech 

» First Forty Years, 310. 

* Thirty Years' View, i, 142. 

^ Adams, in bis Memoirs, refers to the speech as "a remarkable instance of readi- 
ness in debate — a reply of at least four hours to a speech of equal length. It 
demolishes the whole fabric of Hayne's speech, so that it leaves scarcely a wreck to 
be seen." 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 99 

printed on satin for presentation to him.^ The Democratic 
members of the Legislature of Maine, thinking only of the 
denunciation of Federalism, ordered two thousand copies 
published and distributed as "a fearless unanswerable defense 
of the Democracy of New England" — showing that the 
Nullification feature was overlooked in the party contest 
involved. Some contemporaries thought the battle a draw. 
And Jackson? Parton tells us that Major Lewis, who had 
been stationed in the Senate during the debate, on returning 
from the Capitol after hearing Webster, found Jackson up 
and eager for news. On being told that the New England , 
orator had made a powerful speech and demolished "our 
friend Hayne," the old man replied that he "expected it." ^ / 
A few days later the full import of Hayne's speech must have 
dawned upon Jackson and his political intimates, and there , 
is significance in the powerful speech delivered a little later 
in the debate by Edward Livingston, Senator from Louisiana, 
intimate friend of the President, who was destined to enter 
the Cabinet and to frame Jackson's immortal challenge to / 
Nullification. After the speeches of Webster and Hayne, ( (' 
that of Livingston stands out as the greatest made during 
the prolonged discussion. He attempted again to center the 
fire on Federalism, and in so doing brilliantly defended 
the Union against Nullification, and vigorously defended the 
Jacksonian policies against the attacks to which they had 
been subjected during the remarkable debate. If the per- 
sonal views of Jackson and the Administration are to be 
sought in any of the senatorial speeches, they will be found, 
not in the speech of Hayne, but in that of Livingston, which, , 
for that reason, is entitled to more consideration from his- 
torians than it has received. We shall now see that within 
two months Jackson was to find a way to say the last word 
in the Great Debate of 1830. 

1 Letter from Washington Alston Hayne, grandson, to Jervey, Hayne's biog- 
rapher. 

* Parton's Life of Jackson. 



100 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

IV 

For some reason the Nullifiers miscalculated the stern old 
patriot of the White House. Perhaps it was his opposition 
to the tariflF; possibly his South Carolina nativity — what- 
ever the cause, the extreme State Rights party claimed him 
as its own. It is scarcely probable that, previous to the Web- 
ster-Hayne debate, Jackson had ever given any serious con- 
sideration to the danger of disunion, and most probable that 
the views advanced by Hayne in the Nullification part of his 
speech first impressed him with the fact that a sinister doc- 
trine, brilliantly advanced and powerfully supported, was 
preparing to challenge the authority of the Nation. But he 
had kept his own counsels. He may have discussed the dan- 
ger with Livingston or Van Buren, but no public announce- 
ment of his position had escaped him up to the time of the 
Jefferson dinner in the April following the Great Debate. This 
dinner, it is now reasonable to conclude, had been arranged 
with a definite object in view — to create the impression 
that, in a contest, the President would be friendly to the 
doctrine of Calhoun and Hayne. The significance of the 
selection of Jefferson's birthday as the occasion was not lost 
upon the President or his Secretary of State. It was the first 
formal observance of the great Virginian's natal day, and 
among the leaders in the preparations were some "with 
whom the Virginia principles of '98 had, until quite recently, 
been in very bad odor." ^ It was clear to the Red Fox that 
the intent was "to use the Virginia model as a mask or stalk- 
ing horse, rather than as an armor of defense." The plan, as 
it developed, was to undertake, through various toasts and 
their responses, to associate this doctrine with Jeffersonian 
Democracy. Of the twenty-four toasts, practically every one 
bore upon this subject. The President, Vice-President Cal- 
houn, the Cabinet were to be guests. 

^ Van Buren's Autobiography. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 101 

It was a subscription dinner, and outside the conspirators 
in charge the purchasers of tickets had no other thought 
than that it was intended solely as a tribute to the memory 
of the sage of Monticello. 

Talking it over with Van Buren, Jackson soon convinced 
himself as to the motive of the conspirators. By prearrange- 
ment, Van Buren met Jackson at the White House, in the 
presence only of Major Donelson, the President's secretary, 
to determine upon the attitude to be taken and the toasts to 
be proposed. While the Nullifiers were jubilating over the/ 
promised participation of the President, he was locked in| / 
with his Secretary of State deliberating on the wisdom of\; 
showing by his toast his familiarity with the purpose of the \ 
conspirators, and his determination to preserve the Union 
at all hazards. The conferees decided upon that aggressive 
course, and the toasts were framed accordingly. 

"Thus armed," wrote Van Buren years later, "we repaired 
to the dinner with feelings on the part of the Chief akin to 
those which would have animated his breast if the scene of 
this preliminary skirmish in defense of the Union had been 
the field of battle instead of the festive board." ^ When Ben- 
ton arrived that night, he found a full assemblage, with the 
guests scattered about in groups excitedly examining the list 
of toasts, and discussing their significance. The congressional 
delegation from Pennsylvania, on scenting the conspiracy, 
left the hall before the dinner began. Many others, not 
caring to associate themselves with such a movement, retired, 
thus depriving themselves of a triumph. But many re- 
mained, among them four members of the Cabinet, Van 
Buren, Eaton, Branch, and Barry. During the toasts, which 
were so numerous and lengthy that they required eleven 
columns in the "National Telegraph," Jackson sat stern and 
impassive, betraying nothing of his intention. At length, the 
regular toasts given, the volunteer toasts were called for, 

^ Van Buren's Autobiography, 414. 



102 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

and Jackson rose. As he did so, Van Buren, who was short 
in stature, stood on his chair to observe the effect better.^ 
Straightening himself to his full height, and fixing Calhoun 
with his penetrating eye, he paused a moment, and then, 
following the hush, proposed the most dramatic and histori- 
cal toast in American history: 

"Our Federal Union: It must and shall be preserved." ^ 
There was no possible misunderstanding of the meaning. 
From the time of the delivery of the Webster speech the 
value of the Union had been discussed with a disconcerting 
freedom of expression. The rumor was afloat in the capital 
that Calhoun had sinister designs, and proposed to place 
himself at the head of a disloyal movement of the extreme 
State Rights men. The toasts of the evening had told their 
tale of the dinner conspiracy. And Jackson's brief, meaning- 
ful sentence cut like a knife. It was something more than a 
toast — it was a presidential proclamation. 

Without a word more, Jackson lifted his glass as a sign that 
the toast was to be drunk standing. Calhoun rose with 
the rest. "His glass trembled in his hand and a little of the 
amber fluid trickled down the side." ^ There was no re- 
sponse. Jackson stood there, silent and impassive — clearly 
the master of the situation. All hilarity had gone. Jackson 
left his place, and, going to the far end of the room, engaged 
Benton in conversation, but not upon the subject of the 
dinner. 

^ Van Buren's Autobiography, 415. 

* Van Buren is authority for the statement that the President, who had prepared 
the toast as given in the text, really gave it — "Our Union — it must be preserved," 
and that Hayne left his seat and hastened to him to beg him to insert the word " Fed- 
eral." "This," says Van Buren, " was an ingenuous suggestion, as it seemed to make 
the rebuke less pungent, although it really had no such effect. The President cheer- 
fully assented because, in point of fact, the addition only made the toast what he 
originally designed it to be — he having rewritten it in the bustle and excitement of 
the occasion, on the back of the list of regular toasts which had been laid before him, 
instead of using the copy in his pocket, and having omitted that word inadver- 
tently." (Van Buren's Autobiography, 415). 

• Isaac Hill's description. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 103 

When all were seated, Calhoun, who had remained stand- 
ing, slowly and hesitatingly proposed : 

"The Union: next to our liberty, the most dear." 

Then, after a pause of half a minute, he proceeded in such 
a fashion as to leave doubt as to whether the concluding 
sentence was a part of the toast, or a brief speech : 

"May we all remember that it can only be preserved by re- 
specting the rights of the States, and by distributing equally 
the benefits and burdens of the Union." 

Within five minutes after Calhoun had resumed his 
seat, the company of more than a hundred had dwindled to 
thirty — men fled from the room as from the scene of a 
battle. 

The story of that Jacksonian toast spread over the coun- 
try, justifying, as Benton admits he then realized, the perora- 
tion of Webster's speech, and proclaiming to the people the 
existence of a conspiracy against the Union, and the deter- 
mination of Jackson to preserve it at all cost. That toast 
made history. It marked the definite beginning of the his- 
tory-making quarrel of Jackson and Calhoun, and the be- 
ginning of the exodus from the Democratic or Jacksonian 
party of the Nullifiers and Disunionists, who were to be 
warmly welcomed by Clay into the party he was about to 
create to wage war on the Jackson Administration. 

V 

Another dinner was to complete the break of Calhoun and 
Jackson. 

In the spring of 1830, President Jackson gave a dinner 
at the White House in honor of former President Monroe. 
During the evening, while the President and his predecessor 
were engaged in animated conversation concerning the days 
when the latter was in the White House and the former in the 
field in Florida, Finch Ringgold, marshal of the District, 
turned to Major Lewis with the observation that Calhoun 



104 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

had been an enemy of the President in relation to his Florida 
campaign. It was not, however, a revelation to Lewis at the 
time. 

During Jackson's first successful fight for the Presidency, 
the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans was celebrated, 
with Jackson as the guest of honor. James A. Hamilton had 
participated in the celebration as the representative of the 
Tammany Society of New York; and, joining the Jackson 
party at the Hermitage, had accompanied it to New Orleans. 
During the conversation en route, there was some discussion 
of the charges that had been made against Jackson in the 
presidential contest of four years before relative to his con- 
duct in the Seminole War, and the assertion had been made 
that Crawford, a member of Monroe's Cabinet, had urged 
his arrest. It was expected that a similar attack would be 
made in the campaign then beginning. Learning that Ham- 
ilton expected to return by way of Georgia, Major Lewis 
requested him to visit Crawford, then living in retirement 
there, and ascertain just what had occurred in the Cabinet 
meeting. The motive of Lewis was to arm himself, if possible, 
to repel the attack, and to effect a reconciliation between 
Jackson and the Georgian. Finding on his arrival in Georgia 
that to reach the home of Crawford he would be forced to 
go seventy miles out of his way, Hamilton requested John 
Forsyth to ascertain from Crawford "whether the propriety 
or necessity for arresting or trying General Jackson was ever 
presented as a question for the deliberation of Mr. Monroe's 
Cabinet." ^ Passing through Washington on his way home, 
Hamilton spent two days in the same house with Calhoun, 
and frankly made inquiry of him also. The latter answered 
with an emphatic negative. The impression Hamilton re- 
ceived from the conversation was that Calhoun had been 
favorable to Jackson and Crawford hostile. On reaching 
New York he wrote Major Lewis of his inability to see Craw- 

^ Uamiltou to Forsyth, Van Buren's Autobiography, 369. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 105 

ford and of his conversation with Calhoun. The reply of the 
Major shows conclusively that, up to this time, there was not 
the slightest suspicion that Calhoun had been unfriendly to 
Jackson, and the sole impression made upon Lewis by Ham- 
ilton's letter was that, since the subject of arresting or repri- 
manding Jackson had not been broached in the Cabinet, a 
grave injustice had been done the Georgian which ought to 
be righted. Soon afterwards, Hamilton heard from Forsyth 
to the effect that Crawford informed him that in a meeting 
of the Cabinet Calhoun had urged the propriety of arresting 
and trying Jackson.^ Very soon after the receipt of Forsyth's 
amazing letter, Hamilton received a note from Calhoun, 
suggesting the impropriety of disclosures as to Cabinet pro- 
ceedings and asking that no use be made of his name. Realiz- 
ing now the serious possibilities of a complete airing of the 
old controversy, Hamilton filed Forsyth's letter away and 
mentioned it to no one. For eighteen months this letter was 
undisturbed. Then, in the autumn of 1829, when Major 
Lewis was his guest in his New York home, some evil spirit 
impelled Hamilton to show the letter to Jackson's intimate 
who dwelt with him in the White House. Lewis made no 
disclosure until after the Monroe dinner. In the meanwhile, 
as we have seen, the relations between Jackson and Calhoun* 
had become strained, and the Major convinced himself that, 
since the fight was inevitable, his idol should be furnished 
with all available ammunition. In telling him of Ringgold's 
statement at the dinner, Lewis added that it was supported 
by the revelations of the Forsyth letter, and Jackson de- 
manded the fatal note. 

On learning of Jackson's demand, Forsyth took the pre- 
caution first to send a copy of his letter to Hamilton to Craw- 
ford for verification in writing, or for such corrections as the 
facts might necessitate. The reply, with a minor correction, 

^ This he afterwards amended to the extent of saying that Calhoun had urged 
a reprimand of some sort. 



106 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

together with the Forsyth letter to Hamilton, were thereupon 
turned over to Jackson. 

The effect on the President was to infuriate him. Setting 
his jaws, he wrote a sharp note to Calhoun demanding an 
explanation. This was the beginning of one of the most 
acrimonious controversies in American politics. 

VI 

With Crawford as the witness against Calhoun, it is essential 
to turn for a moment to the career of this remarkable and 
singularly unfortunate statesman. No student of the period, 
not poisoned by the prejudices and jealousies of Adams, who 
filled the pages of his diary with grotesque caricatures of his 
rivals, can escape the conclusion that William H. Crawford 
was one of the purest and ablest statesmen of his day. At the 
time he entered the Senate, in his thirty-fifth year, he was 
a splendid figure — handsome, virile, magnetic, independent 
in thought, and audacious in action. He was the great war 
leader in the Senate, as was Calhoun in the House. He had 
made the most profound impression on the business men of 
the Nation of any publicist since Hamilton by his fight for 
strict governmental economy, for the scrutinizing of all ex- 
penditures, and by his championship of the National Bank 
in a brilliant and exhaustive speech in reply to Clay. After 
two years as Minister to France, Madison called him into his 
Cabinet to unravel the hopeless tangle in the War Depart- 
ment. He served as adviser to Madison during the remain- 
der of his Administration, continued as the ofiicial adviser 
of Monroe through the eight years of his Presidency, and was 
urged by Adams to continue in a similar capacity under him. 
He was soon transferred from the War Department to the 
Treasury, where he served for nine years to the complete 
satisfaction of the business men of the Republic. 

Even as early as the close of the Madison Administration, 
a powerful element, opposed to the precedent which pointed 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 107 

to Monroe for the succession, centered on Crawford. Numer- 
ous newspapers strongly urged his election, offers of support 
poured in upon him, and had he at that time entered actively 
into the plans of his friends, there is every reason to believe 
he would have been chosen. When the Congress convened, 
the majority favored his candidacy. The caucus was post- 
poned. The Administration put forth its utmost exertions 
for Monroe. Crawford remained inactive. And when he 
definitely put his claims aside, a number of his friends refused 
to participate in the caucus, in which, notwithstanding his 
own lack of interest and the prestige of the Administration, 
Monroe was barely nominated by a vote of 65 to 54 for 
Crawford. 

The Cabinet of Monroe was so constituted as to make it a 
house divided three ways against itself. Adams, Calhoun, 
end Crawford were all members, all were presidential candi- 
dates, and none had a clearer right to aspire to the succession 
than the one who had lacked only twelve votes of the nomi- 
nation in 1816. The three-cornered fight began in earnest 
as early as 1821. With Adams, Crawford's relations were far 
from friendly, as we may judge from the numerous vindic- 
tive comments in the former's diary. Between Crawford 
and Jackson no love was lost, and we find the Georgian 
writing to a correspondent of Jackson's "depravity and vin- 
dictiveness."^ But Calhoun was to prove the most unscru- 
pulous and hostile of his foes. 

It was not unknown to Crawford that Calhoun had ear- 
nestly sought the alienation of his supporters at the time of 
Monroe's election. And, as the election of 1824 approached, 
Calhoun's personal organ at the capital became intemperate 
in its attacks upon him. But the climax, involving Calhoun, 
was reached in the spring of 1824, when the "A. B." papers 
appeared in Calhoun journals, followed by a formal charge 
in the House of Representatives, filed by Ninian Edwards 

* Letter to Judge Tait, Shipp's Ldfe of William H. Crawford, 152. 



108 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

of Illinois, alleging irregularities and misconduct in office 
against the Secretary of the Treasury. Here we have the 
issue direct between Calhoun, seldom accused of being an 
unscrupulous intriguer, and Crawford, against whom history 
has lodged the charge. The connection between Calhoun and 
the attack appears clear enough. Edwards was Calhoun's 
friend. The paper that pubHshed the "A. B." papers was 
Calhoun's paper and was edited by a clerk in Calhoun's office. 

Immediately after making the charges, Edwards was 
appointed Minister to Mexico — on the recommendation of 
Adams, Secretary of State. During the two weeks previous 
to Edwards's departure for his post, Calhoun made almost 
daily visits to his room in a lodging-house, spending from one 
to two hours with him on each occasion.^ Nor does Adams, 
judger of men and motives, appear entirely free from com- 
plicity in view of his efforts to dissuade Monroe from sum- 
moning Edwards back to Washington to testify in the inves- 
tigation ordered by the House on the demand of Crawford. 
The investigation disclosed that Edwards was a Har, and the 
committee, including Webster, Livingston, and Randolph, 
unanimously reported that "nothing has been proved to 
impeach the integrity of the Secretary of the Treasury or to 
bring into doubt the general correctness and ability of his 
administration of the public finances." 

There is ample justification for the conclusion that Cal- 
houn was directly implicated in an unscrupulous attempt to 
blacken the reputation of a rival, and that Adams shared 
v/ith him in the earnest desire that the investigation should 
be postponed until after the presidential election. 

In the early stages of the contest everything indicated 
Crawford's triumph. Then Tragedy intervened. As a result 
of the administering of lobelia by an unskilled physician, 
Crawford suffered a stroke. For a time he lost both sight and 

1 Crawford in his letter to Calhoun quotes Senator Noble of Indiana, who lived in 
the same lodging-house with Edwards, to this effect. Shipp's Lije of Crawford, 217. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN , 109 

the power of speech. His nervous system was shattered. He 
lost the use of his lower limbs. But such is the pull of an 
overshadowing ambition that even in this plight he refused 
to withdraw from the race. The Opposition press was not 
above exaggerating his condition. And at such a time the 
caucus was held. The galleries were packed, but the attend- 
ance on the floor was slight. Out of the 261 members, only 
68 were present, the friends of Calhoun, Adams, Clay, and 
Jackson having reached an agreement not to enter the 
caucus. Thus the contest was thrown into the House, where 
Clay went over to Adams and elected him. 

There are few more poignant pictures associated with the 
failure of lofty political ambitions than that in the country 
home of the Georgian where he sat with his family about the 
blazing fire, awaiting the news from the Capitol.^ His reputa- 
tion had been dishonestly assailed, his health was broken, his 
fortune was gone, and, after having almost touched the 
Presidency, he calmly awaited the final word of failure. The 
daughters, who adored him, in their efforts to soften the 
expected blow, told him of their joyous dreams of a return to 
"Woodlawn," the Georgia country home, where all could be 
much happier. When the expected messenger arrived and 
announced the election of Adams, the defeated statesman, 
without a change of tone or countenance, merely remarked 
that he thought it would be Jackson. The next day a letter 
from the new President urged him to continue in the Cabinet, 
Jackson called, "frank, courteous, and almost cordial," and 
a little later Thomas Jefferson wrote his frank regrets. ^ And 
thus, having declined the Adams invitation, after a remark- 
able career in the service of his country, William H. Craw- 
ford, poorer than the day he entered public life, and physi- 
cally a wreck, returned to "Woodlawn" in its magnificent 

^ Crawford's Washington country home was situated near Thomas Circle, five 
blocks from the Willard Hotel, and all beyond was farmlands. 

^ The scene at the f'rawford home is elaborately described by an eye-witness in 
Shipp's biography of Crawford. 



110 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

oak forest, with its charming, winding driveways, with its 
peach and apple blossoms, and its gardens and its shrubbery. 
And here under an ancient oak he was to sit for many eve- 
nings with his children and his friends. That he sometimes 
thought over the lost hope, we may be sure; that he often 
associated it with Calhoun, there can be no doubt. 

VII 

The first act of Jackson's, on being told of Calhoun's hos- 
tility in the Monroe Cabinet, was to call for a copy of Craw- 
ford's letter to Forsyth, and to enclose it in a letter to the 
Vice-President, expressing his surprise and asking for his ver- 
sion. The next development in the controversy came in the 
form of a long letter from Calhoun, practically admitting the 
charge, and elaborately condemning and damning Crawford 
for the betrayal of a Cabinet secret. This reply was delivered 
to Jackson on a Sunday on his way to church, and he wrote 
a brief and significant answer on his return to the White 
House on the same day. The closing words sealed the doom 
of Calhoun as far as the Presidency was concerned. "In your 
and Mr. Crawford's dispute I have no interest whatever," he 
wrote. "But it may become necessary for me hereafter, when 
I shall have more leisure and the documents at hand, to 
notice the historical facts and references in your communica- 
tion — which will give a very different view to the subject. 
Understanding you now, no further communication with you 
on this subject is necessary." 

About this time he sent Calhoun's letter to Van Buren, 
who refused to read it, explaining that he would be accused 
of fomenting the trouble and preferred to know nothing 
about it. When the messenger returned to Jackson with the 
comment of his Secretary of State, he replied, " I reckon Van is 
right. I dare say they will try to throw the blame on him." ^ 

* Van Buren, in his Autobiography, p. 376, convincingly exonerates himself from 
all complicity. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 111 

And of course Van Buren was right. After many conferences 
on the subject with Calhoun, Adams recorded in his diary 
that "Calhoun is under the firm persuasion that the author 
of this combustion is Martin Van Buren, who has used the 
agency of James A. Hamilton in producing it, and that Ham- 
ilton, as well as Forsyth, had been a go-between to and from 
Nashville." ^ The denial of Van Buren at the time was dis- 
counted by the anxiety of Hamilton, after talking with For- 
syth in Georgia, to have Crawford's statement in writing. 
Nothing, however, could have been more effective in elimi- 
nating Calhoun from the presidential race. 

That he appreciated his predicament and fought desper- 
ately to extricate himself is shown in various ways. Wirt 
declared, at the time, that "he has blasted his prospects of 
future advancement," and Adams described him as a "drown- 
ing man." But the most conclusive evidence of Calhoun's 
desperate efforts is to be found in the numerous notations in 
Adams's journal. The first entry is to the effect that he had 
"received a letter from John C. Calhoun . . . relating to his 
personal controversy with President Jackson and William H. 
Crawford. He questions me concerning the letter of Gen. 
Jackson to Mr. Monroe which Crawford alleges to have been 
produced at the Cabinet meetings on the Seminole War, and 
asks for copies, if I think proper to give them, of Crawford's 
letter to me, which I received last summer, and of my an- 
swer." It is characteristic that the only comment of Adams 
is an impartial damnation of the trio, Jackson, Calhoun, and 
Crawford, and especially of the Carolinian for his "icy- 
hearted dereliction of all the decencies of social intercourse 
with me, solely from terror of Jackson." But the day follow- 
ing, we find Adams delving into his diary of 1818. "I thought 
it advisable," he writes, "to have extracts from it made of 
all those parts relating to the Seminole War and the Cabinet 
meetings concerning it. As the copy must be made by an 

^ Adams's Memoirs, Jan. 30, 1831. 



112 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

entirely confidential hand, my wife undertakes the task." ^ 
A little later - we find a Mr. Crowninshield applying to him 
on behalf of Mr. Crawford for a written verification of the 
Cabinet incident. And four days after that we have Calhoun 
writing again "requesting statements of the conduct of Mr. 
Crawford in the deliberations of the Cabinet upon the Sem- 
inole War." ^ The same day Wirt ^ informs Adams that he 
has received a similar note from the Georgian, and asks for 
a conference. 

That night Adams went to Wirt's lodgings on Capitol Hill 
and found him in bed and asleep. He was awakened, how- 
ever, by a fellow lodger, and a four-hour conference followed, 
with Adams reading the former Attorney-General the letter 
from Crawford and the answer sent, and also from the Adams 
diary of May to August, 1818. 

It seems that Adams was not prompt in complying with 
Calhoun's request, and a third letter reached him pressing 
him for a statement of Crawford's conduct and opinions 
expressed at the Cabinet consultation on the Seminole War, 
causing the former President to comment sourly in his diary 
that he would give no letter until he had seen all the corre- 
spondence, and knew precisely the points in dispute.^ There 
appears to have been little disposition on the part of Calhoun 
to meet this requirement, for Adams notes that he had re- 
ceived from Calhoun "an extract" from Crawford's letter to 
Forsyth, but not all the correspondence.^ On the next day, 
the Carolinian, who was evidently devoting himself fever- 
ishly and exclusively to the hopeless attempt to save himself, 
sent "a further extract from the Crawford letter." "^ The 
unpleasant old Puritan, thoroughly enjoying the torture of 
the fighting politicians, calmly awaited all the correspond- 

1 Memoirs, Jan. 15, 1831, ^ n^id,^ Jan. 26. 1831. 

3 Ibid., Jan. 30, 1831. 

* Attorney-General in Monroe's and Adams's Cabinets. 
' Memoirs, Feb. 4, 1831. « Ibid., Feb. 4, 1831. 

"> Ibid., Feb. 5, 1831. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 113 

ence, and thus a week later we learn from the diary that 
"Mr. Martin took me aside and delivered to me a letter from 
Vice-President Calhoun with a bundle of papers, being the 
correspondence . . . ," and that the messenger "said that Mr. 
Calhoun wished to have the papers returned to him to- 
morrow morning." ^ 

On the following day Wirt, having moved to Gadsby's, was 
there informed by Adams that he had received the corre- 
spondence, but "that Mr. Calhoun had withheld two impor- 
tant papers; one, the letter from General Jackson to Mr. 
Monroe of Jan. 6, 1818, and the other, Crawford's last letter 
to CaJlioun, which, he sent me word, he had returned to 
Crawford." ^ A few days later a Dr. Hunt called upon 
Adams, "more full of politics and personalities than of 
physic," with the announcement that "Mr. Calhoun's 
pamphlet is to be published to-morrow morning." ^ 

To Adams the issue was clear — a battle between Calhoun 
and Van Buren for the Presidency. The next day this pam- 
phlet, bearing the elaborate title, "Correspondence between 
General Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun, President 
and Vice-President of the United States, on the Subject of 
the Course of the latter in the deliberations of the Cabinet 
of Mr. Monroe on the Occurrences in the Seminole War,'* 
was published at midnight by Duff Green in the "National 
Telegraph." "In my walk about the Capitol Square," 
writes Adams, "I met E. Everett, R. G. Amory, E. Wyer, 
and Matthew L. Davis, all of whom, with the exception of 
Wyer, spoke of the pamphlet. I received a copy of it under 
cover from Mr. Calhoun himself." ^ 

Then the war opened in earnest. The "Telegraph" favor- 
ably commented upon the pamphlet, and the "Globe" un- 

* Memoirs, Feb. 12, 1831. 

* This letter of Crawford's was returned to the writer, according to Shipp's Life of 
Crawford, p. 210, which contains the letter — a vicious philippic — and Calhoun's 
brief note on returning it. 

s Memoirs, Feb. 16, 1831. ^« Ibid., Feb. 17, 1831. 



114 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

favorably. Adams found that "the effect of Mr. Calhoun's 
pamphlet is yet scarcely perceptible in Congress, still less 
upon public opinion," and that, while the Administration was 
at war with itself, " the stream of popularity runs almost as 
strongly in its favor as ever." ^ Not content with the pam- 
phlet alone, the "National Telegraph" followed it with 
Crawford's letter to Calhoun, and another of Forsyth's, and 
Adams observed with interest that "in all this correspondence 
Van Buren is not seen; but James A. Hamilton, intimately 
connected with him, is a busy mtermeddler throughout." ^ 
This notation was in line with thT! gossip of the capital at the 
time of the controversy. 

A little more than a week after the appearance of the pam- 
phlet, Calhoun published his correspondence with Hamilton 
in the "Telegraph," and Duff Green, in the same issue, edito- 
rially charged Van Buren with responsibility for the rumpus. 
And this was met on the following day by the latter in a letter 
to the paper positively denying any interest in the contro- 
versy, or any knowledge of Hamilton's correspondence with 
Forsyth or Calhoun. Green responded by writing Van Buren 
down as a liar.^ Thus the controversy raged, drawing poli- 
ticians, one after another, into the fight. But in this fearsome 
medley of charges and counter-charges one fact stood out — 
that Calhoun had misrepresented his conduct in the Monroe 
Cabinet to Jackson, and, on being betrayed by Crawford, 
had incurred the deadly enmity of the President. As far as 
Jackson was concerned in the public controversy, the matter 
rested with Calhoun's initial letter of admission that he had 
opposed Jackson's course in the war. He prepared an elabo- 
rate statement of the facts for the purposes of history, turned 
it over to the editor of the "Globe," who became his literary 
executor, and he, in turn, permitted Kendall to study it when 

1 Memoirs, Feb. 21, 1831. « Ihid., Feb. 22, 1831. 

' It was not until Jackson had asked Hamilton for Forsyth's letter that the latter 
told Van Buren of its contents. Van Buren's Autobiography, 373. 



JACKSON BREAKS WITH CALHOUN 115 

he was planning a biography of the President.^ But of all this 
the public knew nothing. 

The inevitable storm had broken. Van Buren, suavely 
in the background, was clearly the beneficiary, Calhoun just 
as clearly the victim. After this the great Carolinian lost 
interest in the Presidency, all concern with party, and hence- 
forth, with occasional attacks on Jackson, concentrated on 
sectionalism and slavery. His disaffection was to carry with 
it that of his more ardent supporters, and thus in scarcely . 
more than a year Calhoun, Tyler, Tazewell, and the men ' 
who looked to them for guidance, passed from the Adminis- 
tration camp to join the Opposition. And the incident had 
one immediate effect — inseparable from it — the disruption 
of the Cabinet with the eradication of the last vestige of 
Calhoun influence from all the executive branches of the 
Government. 

^ Benton's Thirty Years' View, i, 168. 



v,^ CHAPTER V 

MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 

I 

At the time the politicians were discussing the open rupture 
with Calhoun, two horsemen might have been seen riding 
slowly through Georgetown, and out on the Tenallytown 
road, engaged in earnest conversation. It was not a novelty, 
however, to the people of the ancient river town, for this had 
long been a favorite route of Jackson and Van Buren on their 
daily rides. On this occasion Jackson had been discussing 
the painful lack of harmony in his Cabinet and had expressed 
the hope that his troubles were about over. 

"No, General," said Van Buren, a little nervously, "there 
is but one thing that will give you peace." 

"What is that, sir.?" snapped the grim one. 

"My resignation." 

"Never, sir; even you know little of Andrew Jackson if you 
suppose him capable of consenting to such a humiliation of 
his friends by his enemies." 

To understand the conditions leading to such a suggestion 
from Van Buren, it is necessary to refer to the serious petti- 
coat entanglement in which Jackson found himself within a 
few weeks after his inauguration, because of the presence 
of Senator Eaton in his Cabinet. It is an amusing fact that 
the first real democratic administration in American history 
should have been all but wrecked on a social issue. Aside 
from the agreeable work of "turning the rascals out," lit- 
tle had occurred to disturb the serenity of the new Adminis- 
tration between the inauguration and the meeting of the 
Congress in the following December but this social war. The 
call to battle had been sounded even before Jackson had 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 117 

taken the oath of office; the battle raged with unprecedented 
fury for many months, finally wrecking the Cabinet and 
advancing Van Buren to within sight of the White House. It 
has not been uncommon for women to change the course of 
political and dynastic history in other countries, but to this 
day the case of the captivating Margaret O'Neal is unique 
in the United States. 

The pretty daughter of a popular tavern-keeper, whose old- 
fashioned house was a favorite with statesmen and their 
wives, she had developed into womanhood under thg eyes 
of men famous in the State. Here Jackson lived during his 
senatorial service, and grew fond of the vivacious child he 
often held on his knee. With the education a doting father 
lavished upon her, and with her intimate contact with men 
of ability and women of refinement, she found herself, on the 
thi^eshold of life, the intellectual peer of the best of her sex. 
It is not unnatural that this clever and beautiful girl should 
have incurred the jealous displeasure of the less attractive 
spouses of the elder statesmen. Her rare beauty alone would 
have done that had she been as virtuous as Caesar's wife 
should have been. Perley Poore ^ describes her as of medium 
height, straight and delicate and of perfect proportions; with 
a skin of delicate white, tinged with red, and with an abun- 
dance of dark hair clustered above her broad, expressive 
forehead; with a nose of perfect Greek proportions, a finely 
curved mouth, a firm, round chin — the Aspasia of Washing- 
ton. When, in addition to her physical and intellectual charms, 
it must be recorded that she occasionally played the role of 
barmaid, permitting such liberties as men in the early stages 
of their cups would take, it is easy to understand why the 
more sedate matrons of the little capital were prone to look 
upon her as beyond the pale. She had married a purser in the 
navy, and even her enemies at the time conceded that the 
match was a mesalliance because of her intellectual superi- 

* Perley s Reminiscences, i, 122. 



118 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ority. In time the husband sailed across the sea, leaving his 
comely young wife in the rather free-and-easy atmosphere 
of her father's tavern. The moral conditions of the capital 
were not such as to spare the most virtuous, thus situated, 
from the tongue of gossip^ A contemporary has said that the 
Washington of those days "resembled in recklessness and 
extravagance the spirit of the England of the Seventeenth 
Century, so graphically portrayed in Thackeray's 'Hu- 
morists.' . . . Laxity of morals and the coolest disregard pos- 
sible, characterized that period of our existence." ^ 

Living at the O'Neal tavern at the time was the wealthy 
Senator Eaton, who had manifested more than a passing 
interest in "Peggy," as she was called, before her marriage. 
Gossip had it that he became more than ever attentive when 
the sailor went to sea. When, after a drunken debauch, 
which the gossips, without the slightest justification, ascribed 
to the worthless seaman's knowledge of his wife's friendship 
for the Senator, the husband shot himself, and Eaton was 
found in her company with increasing frequency, the case 
was complete as far as the drawing-rooms were concerned. 
All that evidence could not furnish, the imagination did, and 
pretty Peggy stood pilloried in the community. 

It was at this juncture that Eaton asked the advice of 
Jackson as to a marriage. With characteristic impulsiveness 
the old warrior replied that if he loved her he should marry 
her and save her good name by the act. Thus, on January 
1, 1829, the future Secretary of War was married to the 
tavern-keeper's daughter, and instantly the drawing-rooms 
began to buzz. One of the patrician ladies of the time of the 
wedding poured forth the chatter of the social set. Here we 
find that Mrs. Eaton "had never been admitted into good 
society"; that while "very handsome" she was "not of an 
inspiring character" and had a "violent temper"; that 
notwithstanding this she was "irresistible" and "carries 

^ Parley's Reminiscences. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 119 

whatever point she sets her mind on." The enemies of Jack- 
son were laughing in the drawing-rooms and diverting them- 
selves "with the idea of what a suitable lady in waiting Mrs. 
Eaton will make for Mrs. Jackson," and were repeating 
"the old adage, 'Birds of a feather flock together.'" ^ In 
arriving at an understanding of Jackson's vigorous defense 
of the lady of his Cabinet, it is well to bear in mind that the 
same scandal-mongers were rolling the name of Mrs. Jackson 
on their tongues. The same letter relates how one of Mrs. 
Smith's gentlemen callers "laughed and joked about Mrs. 
Jackson and her pipe." 

The marriage might have remained merely one of the 
innumerable morsels with which ladies sometimes regale the 
drawing-rooms but for the announcement that Eaton had 
been invited into the Cabinet — and that spread the contro- 
versy to the politicians. Among these Senator John Branch 
had the courage or the insolence personally to press the point 
upon Jackson that, because of social complications, the 
appointment of Eaton would be "unpopular and unfortu- 
nate." 2 Jackson heard his future Secretary of the Navy in 
stern silence, and appointed Eaton Secretary of War. The 
inauguration was scarcely over when the petticoat battle 
began. The most fashionable minister at the capital at the 
time, at whose church Mrs. Smith, the Branches, the Berriens, 
and the Inghams worshiped,^ importuned, no doubt, by the 
society women of the city, and quite probably encouraged by 
the Cabinet ladies of his congregation, persuaded a Phila- 
delphia minister to write the President of the alleged irregu- 
larities of Mrs. Eaton. Some of these ministerial charges are 
unfit for print. Jackson sent a stinging reply, and at the 
same time employed detectives to investigate the charges. 
The search of the sleuths was unavailing, and the situation 
became so embarrassing to the Philadelphia clergyman that 

* First Forty Years, 25S. ^ Haywood's Branch. 

' Rev. J. N. Campbell. 



120 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

he demanded that the Washington minister should reveal 
himself. 

Thus, on the evening of September 1, 1829, a unique con- 
ference was held at the White House, when Jackson con- 
fronted the two clergymen, in the presence of witnesses, and 
forced them to admit that they had no evidence. One of 
the worst charges had been that a certain physician, con- 
veniently dead, had said that Mrs. Eaton had undergone a 
premature accouchement when her husband had been more 
than a year at sea — the date fixed as 1821. When con- 
fronted by the fact that the first husband had not gone to sea 
until 1824, the clergyman lightly changed the date to con- 
form. This disgusted and enraged Jackson. Because he 
cross-examined the gentlemen of the cloth regarding a matter 
affecting the reputation of a woman, some historians have 
been resentful of his severity. ^ The purpose was to convince 
the members of the Cabinet, who were present, that their 
ladies were working a grave injustice upon the wife of a col- 
league in refusing her social intercourse. But far from satisfy- 
ing the women, the discomfiture of the minister and the utter 
collapse of the case only embittered them the more against 
her. The minister was placed in a painful position, dubbed 
by the irrepressible "Ike" Hill as " the chaplain of the con- 
spiracy," and described by Mrs. Smith ^ as having been 
"rendered incapable of attending to his ministerial duties 
to such a degree as to produce great dissatisfaction in his 
congregation." 

Meanwhile months had gone by and Mrs. Eaton was still 
snubbed. Mrs. Callioun, a thorough aristocrat, had posi- 
tively refused to call. Mrs. Ingham, whose own reputation was 
not unquestioned, took her cue from Mrs. Calhoun. Branch 
tells us that when, in May, his wife and daughters joined him 
in Washington, they found Mrs. Eaton "excluded from so- 
ciety," and that he "did not deem it their duty to endeavor 

» Schoulcr, HI, 4a2. 2 ^'^>^^ Pf^rty Years, 311. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 121 

to control or counteract the decision of the ladies of Washing- 
ton." ^ Miss Berrien had accepted the verdict of the women, 
and her father was openly expressing his admiration for "the 
heroic virtues of John Branch for hazarding his place rather 
than permit his wife and daughters to associate with the 
wife of John H. Eaton." ^ Parties were given and Mrs. Eaton 
was not invited; at public receptions she was snubbed. 

This was all meat and drink to Adams, who recorded in his 
diary, after some scandal gossip with Mrs. Rush: "I told 
Mrs. Rush that this struggle was likely to terminate in a 
party division of Caps and Hats." It is this suggestion as 
to party divisions which imposes upon the historian the 
necessity of dwelling upon this strange petticoat squabble. 
It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that, when Martin 
Van Buren appeared at social functions with the pretty 
Peggy on his arm, he made himself President of the United 
States. 

When the Red Fox arrived in Washington and noted the 
passionate determination of the iron man at the White 
House to force a social recognition of Mrs. Eaton, he could 
not have been unmindful of his advantage. He was a wid- 
ower. No wife or daughters were with him to be com- 
promised. His biographer ^ makes the point that he called 
upon the accused woman in response to common instincts of 
decency, and that his failure to have done so would have 
amounted to a striking public condemnation. But he did 
something more than merely call upon her — he became an 
active and aggressive partisan of her cause, and by so doing 
endeared himself to Jackson. Common decency did not de- 
mand that he feature her at his dinners and receptions, or 
enter into an agreement with two unmarried members of the 
diplomatic corps to do likewise.^ It is impossible to account 
for this extraordinary partisanship on any other grounds 

^ Haywood's Branch. ^ Adams's Memoirs, March 18, 1830. 

^ Shepard. * Vaughan of Great Britain and the Russian Minister. 



122 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

than his desire to curry special favor with the President. 
His conduct and activities became the subject of jests and 
quips. "It is asserted that if Mr. Van Buren persists in 
visiting her [Mrs. Eaton], our ladies will not go to his house," 
wrote one of the stubborn dames. ^ With the ladies of the 
Cabinet giving large parties, the wife of Eaton was omitted 
from the invitation lists, and Van Buren countered with 
dinners and dances at the British and Russian Legations 
at which Mrs. Eaton was treated with marked distinction. 
But even here "cotillion after cotillion dissolved into its 
original elements when she was placed at its head." ^ At the 
Russian Legation, Madame Huygens, wife of the Dutch 
Minister, on finding that her seat was beside Mrs. Eaton at 
the table, haughtily took her husband's arm and stalked 
impressively from the room. Because of this affront, Jackson 
was prone to make it an international incident by demanding 
the recall of the Minister, but Van Buren 's sense of humor 
intervened. In sheer delight Adams wrote: "Mr. Vaughan 
. . . gave a ball last night which was opened by Mr. Bank- 
head, the Secretary of the British Legation, and Mrs. Eaton; 
and Mr. Van Buren has issued cards also for a ball which is 
to be given in honor of the same lady. I confine myself to the 
Russian and Turkish war." ^ In the late summer of 1829 the 
effect of the struggle upon both Jackson and Van Buren was 
apparent. The President, disgusted, worn, and sick at heart, 
was confiding to his correspondents his partiality for the calm 
of the Hermitage. And Adams, riding about the environs, 
and encountering Van Buren, similarly taking the air, spite- 
fully wrote: "His pale and haggard looks show it is already a 
reward of mortification. If it should prove, as there is every 
probability that it will, a reward of treachery, it will be but 
his desert." ^ 

* Mrs. Smith. 
- — -- * Mary C. Crawford, Romantic Days of the Early Republic, 219. 
» Memoirs, March 3, 1830. * Ibid., July 8, 1829. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 123 

When the winter came and the social eason opened, the 
contest naturally intensified. Ingham, Branch, and Berrien 
gave large parties from which Mrs. Eaton was excluded, 
while "on the other hand the President made her doubly 
conspicuous by an over display of notice." ^ At one of the 
President's drawing-rooms she was surrounded by a crowd 
eager to please the host, but Mrs. Donelson, mistress of the 
White House, held aloof. This rebellion under his own roof 
caused the aged President the deepest pain. Adams records 
a melodramatic appeal by Van Buren to Mrs. Donelson, 
which was highly colored by the ardent Pepys, but such an 
appeal was made.^ The effect of the fight was disastrous 
to the Administration. The members of the Cabinet were 
speedily involved by their wives, and for a time Eaton and 
Branch did not speak. It was at this juncture that Jackson 
determined to intervene, and "to bring them to speaking 
terms." ^ His intermediary for the purpose. Colonel Richard 
M. Johnson,^ was not a Talleyrand, and his lack of tact in his 
talks with Branch, Berrien, and Ingham made matters all the 
worse. When the relations of the Cabinet members became 
threatening, Jackson demanded that they meet and reach a 
basis for oflScial intercourse at least. The meeting was held 
at the home of Berrien, attended by Branch, Eaton, and 
Barry. The negotiations were conducted with dignity and 
decorum, Branch satisfactorily explained invitations to the 
ministers who had accused Eaton's wife, and the two shook 
hands as a token of reconciliation.^ Meanwhile Congress was 
in session. All attempts to hold Cabinet meetings had long 
been abandoned. The lines were drawn tightly. The slights 
and indignities to Mrs. Eaton had become all but intolerable. 
And much was being heard of the alleged frailty and indis- 

* Adams's Memoirs, Feb. 6, 1830. 

* Van Buren probably gives the true story in his Autobiography, 343-44. 
' Adams's Memoirs. 

* Later Vice-President and noted as slayer of Tecumseh. 

* Letter from Branch, in Haywood's Branch. 



124 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

cretions of Mrs. Ingham — stories that seem to have been 
well known at the time, but to have been given renewed 
currency by Eaton. ^ 

It was at this juncture that Van Buren, riding with Jack- 
son, proposed the acceptance of his resignation. Meditating 
the step for some time he had been unable to muster the 
courage to broach the subject. For four days the President 
and his Secretary of State rode the Tenallytown road ear- 
nestly debating the propriety of the plan, and on the fourth 
day, just as they reached their turning-point at the Tenally- 
town Gate, Jackson gave a reluctant consent and suggested 
the British Mission. But the grim old warrior was loath to 
part with his one strong friend in the Cabinet, and early the 
next morning he summoned Van Buren to the White House, 
and in great agitation, and with significance, explained anew 
that it was his custom to release from association with him 
any man who felt that he ought to go. Thoroughly alarmed, 
Van Buren, with emotion, withdrew all he had said, and 
announced a willingness to retain his post until dismissed. 
Deeply touched, Jackson proposed another discussion on 
their afternoon ride. It was that afternoon that it was agreed 
to call others into the conference; and the next night Van 
Buren had as dinner guests Jackson, Barry, Eaton, and 
Major Lewis. Finally Eaton agreed to follow with his resig- 
nation. Would Peggy consent, asked the tactful Fox. Her 
husband thought she would. The next night the five met 
at dinner again, with Eaton reporting his wife's acquiescence 
in the plans. But when, a few daj^s later, Jackson and Van 
Buren, out for a stroll, stopped at the Eaton house, their 
reception from the mistress was so cold and formal that the 
Secretarj^ commented upon it, and Jackson shrugged his 
shoulders in silence. But the die was cast. The plan was 
made. Van Buren and Eaton would resign, thus paving the 
way for the resignation of the Calhoun followers, and a , 

1 First Forty Years, 311. 



I 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 125 



reorganization of the Cabinet — with the Calhoun influence 
entirely eliminated.^ 

n 

The decision made, the old President must have felt a sense 
of ineffable relief. His Cabinet had been a failure and he 
realized it. His dissatisfaction with a majority of its members 
was not due entirely to their hostility to Mrs. Eaton. The 
fight against the National Bank was in its incipiency and he 
looked upon Ingham as a tool of the Bank; the Nullification 
doctrine was being promulgated and he considered Berrien a 
Nullifier — and in both surmises he was right. He thought 
Branch pompous, incompetent, and subservient to petticoat 
rule. And we may be sure that whether or not the Cabinet 
was to be reorganized in the interest of Van Buren, the rela- 
tions of all three toward the Carolinian entered into his deci- 
sion to rid himself of them. There is evidence that he quite 
early determined to displace Berrien, but nothing of record 
to indicate the cause. In the man selected for his place, 
however, we have ample justification for the suspicion that 
the Red Fox had poisoned his mind against his Attorney- 
General. It was on the suggestion of Van Buren, very soon 
after the formation of the Cabinet in 1829, that the Attor- 
ney-Generalship was offered to Louis McLane, who, in dis- 
gust, had retired to Wilmington for the practice of his 
profession, with the inducement that he would later be trans- 
ferred to the Supreme Bench on the death of the rapidly failing 
Justice Duval. Before breakfast one morning, after a hard 
ride over the wretched mud roads, Hamilton, the lieutenant 
of Van Buren, arrived at the McLane home with the proposal, 
which was accepted. Nothing, however, was done — another 
mystery that died with Jackson and his Secretary of State. ^ 
But the coast was now clear. A strong workable Cabinet 

^ The story of the resignation is told in detail in Van Buren's Autobiography. 
* Hamilton, in his Reminiscences, p. 130, tells of the ride to Wilmington. 



126 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

after Jackson's own heart could be created. The manner in 
which he went about ridding himself of the undesirable mem- 
bers of the old Cabinet is graphically illustrated in the ac- 
count left by Branch.^ It is easy to visualize the scene in 
the President's room, whither he has summoned Branch to 
inform him of the resignations of Van Buren and Eaton. 
There is a "solemn pause." The Secretary, sensing the 
intent, smiles, and suggests that the grim one is not "acting 
in a character nature intended him for"; that he is not a 
diplomatist, and should speak frankly. Whereupon Jackson, 
"with great apparent kindness," explains his purpose, 
points to a commission as Governor of Florida upon the table, 
and announces that it will be a pleasure to fill in the name of 
the visitor. Branch haughtily declares that he had "not sup- 
ported him for the sake of office," and soon retires. Return- 
ing to his office, Branch prepares and sends in his resignation 
courteously, but not omitting to mention that the action 
was taken in response to the President's wish. Whereupon 
Jackson, splitting hairs, writes a protest against the state- 
ment that his correspondent's resignation had been asked. 
"I did not," he writes, "as to yourself, express a wish that 
you would retire." But since the Cabinet had come in "har- 
moniously and as a unit," and two were voluntarily retiring, 
it had become "indispensable" to reorganize completely the 
official household "to guard against misrepresentation." 
More correspondence follows, ending with a gracious accept- 
ance of the resignation, coupled with an expression of appre- 
ciation of the "integrity and zeal" with which the Secretary 
of the Navy had discharged his duties.^ 

Ingham made the President's task easy with a brief note of 
resignation, and passed permanently from public life.^ But 

* Published in Haywood's Branch. 

2 Letters published in Haywood's Branch. 

' During the Bank controversy Ingham attacked Jackson and defended the Bank. 
He died in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1860, never having held office after leaving 
the Jackson Cabinet. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 127 

Berrien was loath to go. In discussing the situation with 
friends, he made no secret of his desire to retain his post, but 
on learning that Jackson had no such notion, he withdrew 
in a friendly and dignified letter. ^ 

The period between the announcement of Van Buren's 
resignation and the appointment of the new Cabinet was rich 
in food for the gossips. What would become of the Red Fox? 
Would Mrs. Eaton have her triumph in the elevation of her 
husband to some other post of distinction? And what would 
be the factional complexion of the new Cabinet? John Tyler, 
sending his budget of gossip home, rather questioned the rumor 
that Van Buren would be groomed for Vice-President and 
thought he would prefer to go abroad. It had also reached 
Tyler that Hugh L. White might become Secretary of War, 
and that "Livingston is to rule the roost," and he lamented 
that in the latter event " the Constitution may be construed to 
ipean anything and everything." He had likewise heard that 
McLane would be Secretary of the Treasury, "but how," he 
asked, "can he ever be acceptable to the South with his notions 
on the tariff and internal improvement?" ^ Meanwhile 
there appears to have been a rather definite plan on the 
part of Jackson and Van Buren for the building of the new 
Cabinet. 

in 

Either the President or Van Buren could very plausibly 
have been responsible for the decision as to Livingston and 
the State portfolio, but the fact remains that the proffer of 
the post was made through the latter. The Louisiana states- 
man was spending his summer vacation at his country place 
on the Hudson when a mysterious letter reached him from 
the New York politician, summoning him instantly to Wash- 

* Berrien's position is clearly disclosed in conversations with Francis Scott Key, 
who wrote Roger Taney. See Tyler's Life of Taney. 
2 Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 423. 



128 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ington, and warning him, on leaving, to conceal his destina- 
tion. Observing both the summons and the injunction, he 
proceeded at once to the capital, and with some misgivings 
accepted the post of Secretary of State. ^ That this was Van 
Buren's appointment seems more than probable. 

For the Treasury, Louis McLane, Minister to England, a 
subordinate, as such, to Van Buren, with whom he had 
worked in perfect accord politically, and whose wife was 
ambitious for Cabinet honors,^ was summoned home from 
London. As Van Buren had, at this time, selected the 
London post for himself, this appointment was unquestion- 
ably his own. * 

The one embarrassing hitch came in the selection of a 
Secretary of War. It was the plan to have Senator Hugh L. 
White of Tennessee relinquish his seat for the War Office, 
thus opening the way for the election of Eaton to his old 
position in the Senate. But White was cold to the proposi- 
tion. The mutual friends of the President and the Tennessee 
Senator importuned him to no effect. James K. Polk strongly 
urged him. Felix Grundy added his appeal. Another wrote 
him: "The old man says that all his plans will be defeated un- 
less you agree to come." ^ Jackson himself did not hesitate 
to go with White's brother-in-law to Virginia to request 
Senator Tazewell, an intimate of W^hite's, to exert his influ- 
ence — but to no avail. The reason for this refusal, furnished 
by a kinswoman, throws light on the general understanding 
as to the purpose of the Cabinet reorganization — he did not 
intend to "thereby aid in the elevation of Mr. Van Buren to 
the Presidency." * Thus did Jackson's earnest wish to serve 
his friends, the Eatons, fail at a critical juncture. After the 

1 At Philadelphia, where he met Dallas, an intimate, Livingston appears to have 
discussed nothing more important than his rosebuds at Montgomery Place. Hunt's 
Life of Living.iton. 

2 First Forty Years, 252, 319. 

3 Letter from F. W. Armstrong, quoted in Nancy Scott's Memoir of Hugh Laivson 
White. 

* Nancy Scott's Memoir of Hugh Lawson White. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 129 

place was also refused bj^ Representative Drayton of South 
Carolina, an enemy of Nullification, Jackson turned to his 
old co-worker in the War of 1812, and Lewis Cass, then 
Governor of Michigan, entered the new Cabinet. This was 
probably Jackson's personal appointment, albeit years be- 
fore, while acting as judge advocate in the court-martial of 
General Hull, Van Buren had learned to his discomfiture 
that Cass was no ordinary man.^ More successful in caring 
for his friend Isaac Hill than for the Eatons, a proffer of the 
Navy portfolio to Senator Levi Woodbury of New Hamp- 
shire created a senatorial vacancy that fell to the fighting 
journalist. Incidentally the relations between Van Buren 
and W oodbury were close. 

In finding a successor for Berrien the President was handi- 
capped by the general opinion of his friends, including Van 
Buren, that his retention would serve a good purpose. Dur- 
ing the period of uncertainty numerous names were can- 
vassed, the favorite of the politicians being James Buchanan. ^ 
The first suggestion of Roger Taney was made to Jackson by 
a Washington physician who had ventured to say that he 
knew "a man who will suit for Attorney-General." The dis- 
interestedness and high character of this truly great and 
much-maligned man shines forth in his conduct during this 
period of negotiations. He not only did not press his claims, 
but urged the retention of Berrien, and, under his instruc- 
tions, his brother-in-law (Key) did likewise. Thus we find 
Key calling upon Livingston, Barry, and Woodbury, urging 
the keeping of Berrien on the ground that "it would have a 
good effect upon the affairs of the party, both as to its bear- 
ing on the Indian and the Eaton questions." ^ All three 
agreed, but confessed a delicacy about broaching the subject 
unless consulted. In the midst of these negotiations, Key 

^ Van Buren commenced the cross-examination of Cass in a flippant manner, but 
was almost instantly sobered by the demeanor and dignity of the witness. Young's 
Life of Lewis Cass. 

" Key's letter to Taney, Tyler's Life of Taney. ^ Tyler's Life of Taney. 



ISO PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

was summoned to the White House and informed of the in- 
tention to invite Taney into the Cabinet. Again Key urged 
the wisdom of retaining Berrien ; the President firmly rejected 
the idea, and thus, on his personal judgment, Jackson 
secured the services of one of the strongest figures to be 
associated with him in his most bitter battle. 

Livingston, McLane, Cass, Woodbury, and Taney — this 
at any rate was not the "millennial of the minnows." But 
the new Cabinet was not to be received with universal 
acclaim. The Calhoun followers grumbled that it was a Van 
Buren Cabinet; and Tyler, thinking in terms of State Rights, 
complained bitterly that State-Rights men had been left 
"entirely out in the cold." ^ 

Nor did the Eaton trouble dissipate instantly on the pass- 
ing of the first Cabinet. The retired members stoutly insisted 
on every occasion that they had been forced out because of 
their refusal to coerce their wives to associate with naughty 
Peggy. After his return to his North Carolina home. Branch, 
in a voluminous letter, charged all the responsibility for the 
disruption of the Cabinet to the social issue. Berrien, albeit 
not only willing but anxious to remain, on his return to 
Georgia eulogized Jackson at a complimentary dinner in his 
honor, but added that when he attempted to prescribe rules 
for the association of the families of his Ministers he scorned 
the dictation. 2 And Duff Green was so active and persistent in 
ascribing the upheaval to the Eaton affair that Key was con- 
vinced "that that matter had not occasioned the change in 
the Cabinet." ' The gossips of the drawing-rooms, distressed 
at being deprived of a choice morsel, set their teeth into it 
with a grim determination to hold on, Mrs. Bayard Smith, as 
though personally affronted, wrote to a friend: "The papers 
do not exaggerate, nay do not retail one half his [Jackson's] 

^ Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 423. 

* Miller's Bench and Bar of Georgia. 

* Letter to Taney, Tyler's Ldfe of Taney. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 131 

imbecilities. He is completely under the domination of Mrs. 
Eaton, one of the most ambitious, violent, malignant, yet 
silly women you ever heard of." And a few days later she 
returns to the attack: "Mrs. Eaton cannot be forced or per- 
suaded to leave Washington. . . . She . . . believes that next 
winter the present Cabinet Ministers will open their doors to 
her. Mrs. McLane has already committed herself on that 
point. Previous to her going to England, while on a visit 
here, in direct violation of her most violent asseverations pre- 
viously made, she visited this lady, and instantly became a 
great favorite with the President." ^ 

However, if Mrs. Eaton lingered, others departed with un- 
dignified celerity. As soon as the robes of office fell from his 
shoulders, Eaton began a search for Ingham to administer a 
personal chastisement. The latter, who had been peculiarly 
oflFensive, and whose own wife was a victim of the gossips, 
would not fight a duel. He did not care to fight at all. Thus 
began an amusing chase. Eaton lay in wait for him in the 
streets, while the dignified ex-Minister of Finance carefully 
picked his way home through the muddy alleys and back 
yards into the back door of his house. At length the chase 
became uncomfortable. A stage-coach was chartered. The 
Inghams' baggage was packed. Two hours before daybreak, 
the coach driver might have been seen lashing his horses 
through the mud and water of the capital, bearing on their 
way to Philadelphia the erstwhile Cabinet Minister and his 
family. 

The first Cabinet, which almost immediately put on a 
drawing-room comedy, went out with a rip-roaring farce, 
with seconds bearing ominous messages, and with Cabinet 
officers lying in wait in the shadows, creeping through alleys, 
brandishing pistols, and in the darkest hours before the dawn 
lumbering in stage-coaches out of the capital city to es- 
cape a shot. 

» First Forty Years, 320. 



132 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

The thoroughly frightened Ingham openly charged that 
Eaton intended to murder him, and the letters of the for- 
mer secretaries concerning the "murder conspiracy" added 
mightily to the amusement of the enemies of the Administra- 
tion and to the chagrin and disgust of its friends. "Before 
you receive this," wrote a Washingtonian to Senator Johu 
Forsyth, "you will have seen the disgraceful publications o' 
Eaton and Ingham, which, of course, are the sole topics of 
conversation here. The rumor was that the President was en- 
gaged the day before yesterday in investigating the matter, 
and I know that he had a magistrate with him taking deposi- 
tions." 1 The hilarity of Jackson's enemies was vividly ex- 
pressed in a cartoon, entitled "The Rats Leaving a Falling 
House," published in Philadelphia, and, with childish de- 
light, Adams records in his diary that "two thousand copies 
of this print have been sold in Philadelphia this day," and 
that the ten thousand copies struck off "will be disposed of 
within a fortnight." ^ 

Van Buren was sent to the English Court. Eaton was 
made Governor of Florida and later Minister to Spain, where 
Mrs. Eaton, in the most dignified Court in Europe, became 
a brilliant success. Ingham passed from public life. Branch 
affiliated with the Whigs in 1832 and in 1836, and was made 
Governor of Florida by Tyler. Berrien became one of the 
orators and leaders of the Whigs, and one of the founders of 
the Know-Nothing Party. Thus, after two years of disorgan- 
ization and domestic turmoil, the Jackson Administration, 
with a powerful Cabinet, and, for the first time, a definite 
policy, began to strike its stride. At least two of the new 
Ministers were to play leading and spectacular parts in the 
great party battles that were to follow. 

It must have been with a sense of ineffable relief that Jack- 

* MS. letter of Arthur Schaaf to Senator John Forsyth, written from Georgetowa 
June 25, 1831, furnislied the author by Mr. Waddy Wood, Washington, D.C, 
- Memoirs, April 25, 1831. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 133 

son, seated at the head of the Cabinet table, surveyed the 
new men with whom he had surrounded himself — a feeling 
in which the public shared. But as his glance moved about 
the table it no doubt lingered with greatest confidence and 
satisfaction upon the three whose very appearance bespoke 
character, intellectuality, and power. At his right hand the 
tall figure, with the student's stoop, the meditative manner, 
the benevolent expression, which had stood beside him in the 
stirring days of New Orleans — the scholarly Livingston. 
Near by he recognized in the imposing figure with the robust, 
well-knit frame, the huge head, the bushy brows, the pene- 
trating, fighting blue eyes of Cass, a man of the solidity and 
strength that he admired and trusted. The one strange figure 
about the table, destined to prove more nearly a man after 
his own heart than any other who was to serve him in the 
Cabinet, was Taney — thin and delicate like Jackson himself, 
with the student's stoop of Livingston, but without his calm. 
Between these three and the others, there was a decided de- 
scent, although they were men of abiUty and reputation. 

IV 

Edward Livingston was one of the strongest characters of 
his time, a Nationalist as intense as Webster, who was to pen 
a document as virile and militant as Webster's speech for the 
Union — one of the most brilliant, talented, and polished 
publicists the Republic has known. This premier of the 
greatest of democrats, was a thorough aristocrat, tracing his 
lineage back to the English peerage. Compared with him, 
the Opposition leaders and even their ladies of the drawing- 
rooms lamenting the social crudities of the Jacksonians were of 
mongrel breed. And yet this highest type of aristocrat was, 
by preference, one of the most ardent of democrats. When, 
in his thirtieth year, he entered the National House of Rep- 
resentatives from his native city of New York, he had behind 
' him every advantage and before him every opportunity. 



134 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Distinguishing himself by brilliancy in debate, vigor in at- 
tack, when he left Congress his militant leadership of the Jef- 
fersonian party had convinced Hamilton that he had to be 
destroyed. 1 Jefferson made him district attorney; the people 
elected him to the mayoralty of New York, and the attempt 
to serve in both capacities wrought his financial ruin. While 
personally directing the fight against the yellow fever plague, 
he was himself stricken, and he recovered only to find that 
his assistant in the district attorney's ofiice had squandered 
$100,000 of the public money on wine and women. Without 
a moment's hesitation he conveyed all his property to a trus- 
tee for sale, beggared himself completely, and resigned both 
his oflBces. The public protested against his abandonment of 
the mayoralty, and for two months the Governor refused to 
accept his resignation, but he knew that the path of duty led 
to the replenishment of his purse. Thus, at thirty-nine, leav- 
ing behind him the prestige of his family connections and his 
own career, he turned toward Louisiana, then the Promised 
Land, and set forth for New Orleans. There he immediately 
took high rank in his profession, established a lucrative prac- 
tice, and soon acquired valuable real estate abutting the river 
which promised a fortune. The story of how he was deprived 
of this through the incomprehensible spite of President Jef- 
ferson constitutes one of the most fascinating chapters in the 
history of American litigation.^ But Livingston was sus- 
tained by infinite patience, a happy philosophy, and natural 
buoyancy of temperament, and he soon found other matters 
to enlist his interest. When Jackson reached New Orleans to 
defend the town, it was Livingston who aroused the militant 
spirit of the people with his martial eloquence, and served as 
the soldier's aid, translator, and adviser. It was in these days 
amidst the barking of the English guns that Jackson discov- 

* Hamilton took the stump in a vain attempt to defeat his reelection. 

* Senator Beveridge, in his monumental work on John Marshall, gives in detail 
the legal phases of the controversy, iv, 100-16. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 135 

ered in Livingston the man he could trust as a patriot and 
^ghter in two of the bitterest battles of his Presidency.^ It 
was soon after this that Livingston began the greatest un- 
dertaking of his Hfe — one so far-reaching in its effect on 
humanity as to carry his name to the thinkers, philoso- 
phers, and philanthropists of every land. The "Livingston 
Code" alone entitles him to a place high on the scroll of hu- 
manitarians who have served mankind. Victor Hugo de- 
clared that he would be "numbered among the men of this 
age who have deserved most and best of mankind." Jeremy 
Bentham was tremendously impressed. Dr. H, S. Maine, au- 
thor of the "Ancient Laws," pronounced him "the first legal 
genius of modern times." Villemain, of the Paris Sorbonne, 
described his work as "a work without example from the 
hand of any one man." From the Emperor of Russia and the 
King of Sweden came autograph letters, from the King of the 
Netherlands a gold medal and a eulogy, and statesmen and 
philosophers of Europe vied with kings and emperors in pay- 
ing homage. The Government of Guatemala, not content 
with translating his "Code on Reform and Prison Disci- 
pline," and adopting it without the change of a word, be- 
stowed upon a new city and district the name of Livingston. 
Jefferson wrote: "It will certainly array your name with 
the sages of antiquity"; Kent and Story, Madison and Mar- 
shall joined in the common praise, and he was elected a mem- 
ber of the Institute of France. Such was the prestige he took 
to Washington, when, in his fifty-ninth year, he again entered 
the House as a Representative from New Orleans. 

He was now an old man, but of unusual vigor, and able to 
wear out younger men with his long pedestrian jaunts. He 
loved society and mingled with it freely, unable to escape it if 
he would because of the social and intellectual brilliance of 
his wife and the charm and beauty of his daughter. His fame 

^ Hunt's Ldfe of Livingston describes in detail Livingston's activities in connection 
with the battle of New Orleans. 



136' PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

was seemingly secure. His reputation was world-wide. His 
conversational gifts were of an uncommon order. His friends 
and social intimates were confined to no party, and embraced 
the best of both. After a brief period in the House he had en- 
tered the Senate where he stood among the foremost. Such 
was the man Jackson called to the head of his Cabinet — one 
whose character and career suffer nothing by comparison 
with those of his most distinguished predecessors, Jefferson, 
John Quincy Adams, and Henry Clay. 

V 

We are not concerned with the Roger B. Taney who wrote 
the Dred Scott decision, but with that portion of his career, 
little known and appreciated, which convinced Jackson that 
he was worthy of wearing the mantle of John Marshall. And 
that is by far the most dramatic phase of his life — his bat- 
tling years. Born and reared on a Maryland plantation, 
among horses and slaves, he grew up to be an independent, 
self-reliant youth. At Dickinson College he refused to take 
down a portion of a lecture which assailed our republican 
governmental system. As valedictorian of his class he suf- 
fered torments from a morbid fear of public speaking. Thus 
even as a student he was independent in thought, coura- 
geously devoted to his convictions, brave in battle, but mis- 
erably self-conscious on parade. 

On graduating, he returned to the woods and fields of the 
j)lantation, abandoned his books, and gave himself up to the 
joys of fox-hunting, leading the life of the old-fashioned Eng- 
lish country gentleman. When he took up the study of law 
in Annapolis, however, he abandoned this outdoor life in 
turn, and, declining all social invitations, devoted himself to 
his studies, and to fighting his native timidity, in a debat- 
ing society. Here also he studied the methods of two of 
the Nation's greatest advocates, Luther Martin and Wilham 
Pinkney. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 137 

And, strangely enough, this great lawyer in the making, be- 
gan the practice of the law as a side issue to politics. In the 
quiet rural community of his nativity, where there was little 
litigation and no opportunity for professional distinction, he 
settled, for the sole purpose of entering the House of Dele- 
gates. This, however, in compliance with the wishes of his 
aggressively Federalistic father. Thus, at the age of twenty- 
two, we find young Taney responding to the roll-call as a pro- 
nounced Federalist of the school of Hamilton. It is note- 
worthy that he was defeated in the next election because of 
the Jeffersonian revolution of 1800. 

This setback changed the course of his career. An uncom- 
promising Federalist with Federahsm apparently dead, poli- 
tics no longer promised a future, and he turned now to the 
serious consideration of the law, and located at Frederick 
where the Democrats were overwhelmingly predominant. In 
this community, rich, intellectual, cultured, and hospitable, 
he instantly took his place among the leaders of the bar and 
entered upon a lucrative practice. A Federalist from princi- 
ple, he did not hesitate, when called to lead the forlorn hope. 
As a Federalist, he opposed the War of 1812. Up to this 
point his political career was similar to that of Webster. 

And it is in the divergence of the two careers at this point 
that the future of Taney turned. He fought the war until the 
die was cast, and then threw himself with intense fervor into 
the support of his country against the foreign foe. Contemp- 
tuous of the disloyalists of his political family, he summoned 
the Federalists to the unqualified support of the American 
arms, and such was his prestige that a large portion of the 
party in Maryland followed his lead.^ By subordinating 
party to country, he all but obliterated party lines, and when 
he was nominated for Congress as a war Federalist he all but 
wiped out the normal Democratic majority. Had he gone to 

^ These came to be known as the "Goodies," and Taney was known as "King 
Coodie" to indicate his unquestioned leadership. Tyler's Life of Taney. 



138 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Washington at that time as a lone Federalist supporting the 
war, to face Webster, fighting the organization of the army 
and the appropriations, his national reputation would have 
come eighteen years before it did. For his was no half- 
hearted hate of the disloyalty of his party co-workers. This ^ 
is the first decisive action upon which an interpretation of his v 
political character may be predicated. 

Meanwhile, restricting himself more and more to his pro- ! 
fession, frequently associated with Luther Martin in the most ; 
important litigation, his reputation spread throughout the 
State, and the politician was merged with the lawyer. It was , 
in connection with one of his most sensational cases that he I 
took a position on slavery and the right of abolitionists to be 
heard that throws a high light on his character and courage. 

An abolitionist minister from Pennsylvania had gone to j 
Maryland and made a ferocious attack on slavery in a public \ 
meeting attended by some slaves. The excitement and feel- ; 
ing against him were intense. To the sensitive slave-owners 
the speech seemed a deliberate incitation of the slaves to in- 
surrection. The minister's life was in danger. It required su- 
preme courage for a Maryland lawyer in that slave-holding 
community to stand between the abolitionist and the popular 
clamor against him, and Taney stepped from the professional 
ranks to plead his cause, not perfunctorily, but with a pas- ; 
sionate defiance worthy of the highest traditions of his pro- ! 
fession. He made his defense on no less grounds than "the i 
rights of conscience and the freedom of speech." And he 
spoke on slavery even as Garrison or Lincoln might have 
spoken. In a courtroom crowded with slave-owners who were 
his neighbors, he touched boldly on the pathos and the trag- 
edy of the institution. After this daring defense before a 
slave-holding jury, the hated abolitionist was acquitted — 
and the records of the American courts record no nobler ' 
triumph. 

The death of Pinkney and the disqualification of Martin 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 139 

soon advanced Taney to the head of the Maryland bar. It 
was one year after he had estabHshed himself in Baltimore 
that he first allied himself with the supporters of Andrew 
Jackson. During the campaign of 1824 was pubHshed a letter 
written by Jackson to Madison seven years before, urging 
the recognition of those Federalists who had broken with 
their party to support the War of 1812, and suggesting the 
name of Colonel Drayton of South Carolina.^ Discriminating 
between the anti-war Federahsts and the pro-war Federal- 
ists, Jackson here declared that had he been commander of i 
the military department in which the Hartford Convention 
was held, he would have court-martialed the three leaders 
of the Convention. This announcement of his views had at- 
tracted to his standard many pro-war Federalists of Mary- 
land, and the most notable acquisition was Roger B. Taney. 
He was impelled to his course with no thought of political 
reward. His whole mind and heart were in his profession. 
Jackson knew nothing of Taney's partiality at the time, and 
only learned of it about the time he was seeking a successor 
for Berrien. At no time in his life had the Maryland lawyer 
been so thoroughly satisfied with his lot. He had been made 
Attorney-General of the State on the unanimous recommen- 
dation of the bar, and this was the only office to which he 
ever aspired. It was in line with his work and left him at 
home with his family and his books. Such was his situation, 
when, through a non-political suggestion, he was offered the 
position in the Cabinet of Jackson. 

At this time he was in his fifty-fourth year, with no taste 
for the trickery and intrigues of politics, and he asked noth- 
ing better for his leisure hours than meditative tramps 
through the woods, a canter on his horse, a volume of poetry 
or history, or the delights of his home, presided over by the 
sister of the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." An ar- 

• Drayton was Congressman from Charleston during the Nullification fight and 
strongly supported Jackson. 



140 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

dent Catholic, he was strict in the observance of his religious 
duties. Always vehement in his views, and uncompromising 
in his convictions, he was almost unpleasantly decisive in the ti 
expression of his poHtical opinions. Such was his lofty con- •; 
ception of official propriety that while in office he was to re- -i 
fuse to accept the slightest token of appreciation from people ; 
with whom he had official relations.' He had all the courtesy > 
and courtliness of his culture, all the caution of the pains- •! 
taking lawyer, and all the circumspection of the man jealous • 
of his honor. He was to become the most virile assistant of t 
Jackson in the bitterest fight of his Presidency, the most ' 
trusted of his Cabinet, because the most like Jackson in the i 
vigor of his blows. 

VI I 

i 

To describe Lewis Cass as an American politician would be ' 
damning with faint praise, for he was something infinitely ; 
more and greater — he was an empire-builder of the com- '-. 
pany of Clive and Rhodes, one of the most robust figures i 
in American history. His first remembered view of the 
world was that of being held in his mother's arms, and | 
looking out the windows of his New Hampshire home upon i 
the bonfires blazing in celebration of the ratification of the | 
Constitution. Crossing the Alleghanies on foot, with a knap- 
sack on his back, sleeping beneath the stars, his Ameri- '■ 
canism had expanded in the contemplation of the magnitude 
of the Republic. Riding the circuit, as Western lawyers did 
in those days, he was a witness of the stubborn battles 
against the wilderness, and he had enough imagination to see, ; 
in the rough men wielding axes, Homeric figures. And it was 
while pursuing his lonely way through the virgin forests of 1 

^ Tyler relates tlie incident of a personal friend of Taney's, temporarily connected I 
with the custom house in New York, sending him a box of cigars without his card, ; 
while he was Attorney-General. Not knowing who sent them, Taney put them ■ 
aside. After leaving office, and learning the donor's identity, he wrote an apprecia- 
tive note enclosing the price of the cigars. ' 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 141 

Ohio that he found time for the assimilation of his reading 
and learned to be the independent and courageous thinker he 
became. 

He had established a sound reputation at the bar, when 
the War of 1812 added that of a gallant and brilliant soldier. 
To him especially are we indebted for the shameful story of 
Hull's cowardly surrender of Detroit — an act so maddening 
that Cass broke his sword in protest. But his reputation as 
lawyer and soldier pales by comparison with the reputation 
he was to make as an empire-builder. 

Never was a ruler confronted by more disheartening diffi- 
culties than Cass, when, in 1813, he became the civil Gover- 
nor of Michigan. For two years he was forced to battle 
against anarchy and famine. Organized society was demor- 
alized. The country was disorganized. The savages had 
driven away the cattle of the settlers, and the French espe- 
cially were in desperate straits. The war-whoops of the red 
men had so terrorized the people that they were afraid to set- 
tle down to the cultivation of the land. The morale of the 
Territory was pathetically low. And Cass, with the empire- 
builder's decision and genius, instantly formed his plan to 
combat the threatened disintegration. The people had to be 
fed — he fed them from the public stores, drew upon the 
Government for further assistance, personally directed the 
battle against famine — and won. The confidence of the peo- 
ple had to be restored as a preliminary to progress — he de- 
termined to restore it by demonstrating his mastery of the 
savages. Organizing the yoimg men, he personally led them 
against the Indians in a bloody skirmish — and won. He re- 
peated it — and won. Again — and won. And thus the ter- 
ror of the people passed, and they returned to their homes. 

He then turned to the organization of civil government. 
Courts were created, civil officers selected, territorial divi- 
sions established, new counties were carved, and he began an 
elaborate policy of road-building and internal improvements. 



142 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

One of his first acts was to establish a school system, and to 
encourage the building of churches with the assurance of re- 
ligious liberty. 

This accomplished, he turned with his usual zeal to the 
Americanizing of the people, many of whom were French, 
and to encouraging the migration of colonists. Knowing the 
industry and energy of his native New England, he planned 
to draw immigrants from that section hoping that the French 
would learn by their success to emulate their example. But 
here he had another battle to overcome the general notion of 
the Eastern States that the land of Michigan was valueless. 
In time he succeeded. 

And then he found time to challenge the right of the Brit- 
ish across the border to interfere in the affairs of the Terri- 
tory. In those days Michigan was only a Territory on the 
outskirts, and it was easier for the National Government to 
ignore insults than to challenge a mighty empire by protest- 
ing against them. As late as 1816 vessels were stopped on 
their way to Detroit and searched by British agents. Cass, 
with lawyer-like care, collected his evidence, transmitted it to 
Washington, vigorously protested to the British authorities 
— and won.^ 

Nowhere, perhaps, does his vision as an empire-builder, shine 
more luminously than in his letter to Calhoun, Secretary of 
"War, proposing a scientific expedition in 1819, under the sanc- 
tion and with the cooperation of the Federal Government.* 
This was the programme of a statesman. And he asked for 
experts for the expedition — engineers, zoologists, botanists, 
mineralogists. Determining to accompany the expedition, it 
is interesting to note the sagacity of the reason he assigns: "I 
think it very important to carry the flag of the United States 
into those remote sections where it has never been borne by 

^ See McLaughlin's Life of Cass, 99, 100, for details of his fight against British 
insults and interference. 

2 See Smith's Life of Cass for letter. 



MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET 143 

any one in public station." This was the most important ex- 
pedition ever undertaken by the American Government up to 
that time, and was so regarded by the press of the period. 

If we add to this, his successful negotiations of treaties 
with the Indians under dramatic circumstances, we have the 
work and record of "The Father of the West" — empire- 
builder from 1813 until he entered the Cabinet of Jackson 
in 1831. 

And this man of action, fighting life-and-death battles on 
the fringe of civilization, found time for the gratification of 
literary tastes. Here he suggests the Roosevelt of a much 
later day. When starting forth on an expedition into the 
wilderness, it was his custom to supply himself with a small 
library for his entertainment while floating in canoes on the 
rivers or the lakes. His articles in later years disclose the 
scholar.^ Just before entering the Cabinet he had delivered 
a scholarly address at Hamilton College which has been pre- 
served in a number of the popular collections of orations. ^ 

Livingston the Nationalist. 

Cass, the Empire-Builder. 

Taney, the Crusader. 

Out of the career of any one of these might be woven a 
romance. All were of heroic mould, veritable Plutarchian 
figures. And we shall see that the time had arrived when 
Jackson would need the wisest and most courageous of 
counselors — for Henry Clay was returning in shining armor 
to lead the bitterest of partisan battles against the Adminis- 
tration. 

^ "France: Its King, Court and Government"; "Three Hours at St. Cloud's"; 
and "The Modern French Judicature." He also, on the request of Jackson, wrote the 
best account of the battle of New Orleans. 

^ See McLaughlin's lA^e of Cass; Young's biography, written during Cass's life- 
time, in Smith's Life of Cass. 



CHAPTER VI 

KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 

I 

From the beginning the virile, mihtant, driving factors behind 
Jackson's policies were found outside his official family. The 
"Kitchen Cabinet," so called in derision, was more influential 
in the moulding of events than the old-fashioned, conven- 
tional statesmen who advised their chief in the seclusion 
of the Cabinet room. Had Jackson depended wholly on his 
Cabinet for the support of his policies, he would have been 
constantly confused by divided counsels. On scarcely any of 
the vital issues of his Presidency did he have the hearty coop- 
eration of his constitutional advisers. But never before, nor 
since, has any President been served by such tireless organ- 
izers of the people, such masters of mass psychology, such 
geniuses in the art of publicity and propaganda. These men, 
the small but loyal and sleepless group of the Kitchen Cabi- 
net, were the first of America's great practical politicians. 

Of this group the master mind was Amos Kendall, born in 
a New England farmhouse in the latter days of the eighteenth 
century. In youth, he preferred study to play, and because 
of a premature solemnity he was familiarly known as "The 
Deacon." His timidity was as painful as that which tortured 
Charlotte Bronte. The stupid act of a teacher in ridiculing 
his reading of an oration came near putting a period to his 
education, and at Dartmouth he was almost moved to tears 
by professorial praise of one of his essays. His college days 
were so serious and laborious that his health suffered, and his 
constitution was impaired. He played no pranks and had no 
dissipations. Taking his politics seriously, the overwhelming 
preponderance of Federalists did not restrain him from bellig- 




AMOS KENDALL 

From an engraving in the Democratic Review, March, 1838, af^er a drawing by 

Charles Fenderick 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 145 

erently espousing the cause of the minority. It is significant 
of his instinctive bent that when he turned to politics he shed 
his timidity and stood forth a passionate mihtant. Gradu- 
ating from the college that Webster loved, he declined his 
diploma, partly because of indifference, but largely because 
of his personal dislike of the president. Thus early he enter- 
tained no illusions, and had the courage of both his convic- 
tions and his prejudices. 

Meanwhile the second war with England was on, and he 
was beginning to detest the New England Federalists for 
their disloyalty and illiberality. The pulpits rang with bitter 
denunciations of Madison, and ministers proclaimed from 
the pulpits that Democrats were "irreligious profligates." ^ 
In Boston, Kendall heard the eloquent Harrison Gray Otis 
ferociously denounce the war, and he hastened home to 
enlist, to be rejected for physical disabilities. 

In his twenty-fifth year he set forth from his bleak New 
Hampshire home to seek his fortune, and we are able to sense 
the spirit and temper of the youth from the jottings of his 
journal. At Boston he heard Edward Everett whom he 
thought a "youth of great promise." At Washington he 
attended a White House levee, finding Dolly Madison "a 
noble and dignified person," the President's "personal ap- 
pearance very inferior," and meeting Felix Grundy and 
Lewis Cass. Thence he passed down the Ohio, a guest of 
Major Barry, and became a citizen of Kentucky. 

At Lexington he entered the home of Henry Clay, en- 
gaged by Mrs. Clay as a tutor for the children. In later 
years, when he was the mysterious power in the Jackson 
Administration, and Clay the leader of the Opposition, the 
drawing-rooms of Washington buzzed with a fantastic tale, 
intended to prove his depravity and ingratitude. Harriet 
Martineau,^ while in the capital, heard it and incorporated 
it in her book. According to this story "tidings reached Mr. 

* Kendall's Autobiography, 73. ^ Retrospect of Western Travel, i, 156. 



146 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

and Mrs. Clay one evening that a young man, solitary and 
poor, lay ill of a fever in a noisy hotel in the town. Mrs. Clay 
went down in the carriage without delay, and brought the 
sufferer home to her house, where she nursed him with her 
own hands till he recovered. Mr. Clay was struck with the 
talents of the young man and retained him as a tutor of his 
sons, heaping benefits upon him with characteristic bounty." 
Unhappily for the tale, Kendall was not ill, Mr. Clay was at 
Geneva at the time of his employment and during the entire 
period of his stay in Ashland, and the "benefits heaped upon 
him" consisted of $300 a year with board and lodging, and 
the privilege of using Mr. Clay's library. Soon after leaving 
the service of the Clays, we find him recording in his diary: 
"Rode to Lexington and visited H. Clay. I found him a very 
agreeable man, and was familiarly acquainted with him in 
half an hour." 

However, his sojourn at Ashland was pleasurable and 
profitable. Mrs. Clay, deeply interested in him, chaffed him 
on his timidity, criticized the stiffness of his bows, and drove 
him to his room to practice before the mirror, admitted him 
to her social gatherings, called upon him to read his poetry 
to her friends, and rallied him about his love affairs. Thus 
the "mediocre" and vulgar "writer for pay" of the Jack- 
son regime was once considered fit for the social circle in the 
home of Henry Clay. 

Scarcely had he been admitted to the bar when he was 
enticed by Colonel Richard M. Johnson into the editorship 
of the "Georgetown Patriot"; and it is illuminative of his 
character to find him, when the slayer of Tecumseh, a little 
later, upbraided him for refusing personally to abuse the 
Opposition, writing in his diary: "I shall give Richard my 
vote, but I shall not be his tool." * His editorials constructive, 
his specialty banking and currency, he soon found himself in 
the editorial chair of the "Frankfort Argus," where he was 

' 1 Kendall's Autobiography, 175. 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 147 

instantly engaged in bitter political controversies. Whether 
in argument, where he excelled, in invective, or in wit, he 
invariably scored heavily on the Opposition. For his genera- 
tion and community, his editorial code was lofty. He prom- 
ised himself never knowingly to misrepresent; if, through 
mistake, he did, to rectify the mistake without being asked; 
never to retract a statement he thought true; to resent an 
insult in kind; to defend himself, if assaulted, by any means 
necessary, even to killing, and never to run. So great was his 
professional self-respect that on one occasion, when vulgarly 
assailed in an Opposition paper, he had his answer printed in 
bill form and circulated by hand, rather than befoul his own 
journal with a suitable reply. 

In seeming contradiction, however, we have his merci- 
less bombardment of the unfortunate Shadrach Penn, editor 
of a Louisville paper, who had a genius for attracting the 
ridicule of his intellectual superiors; for while Kendall was 
peppering him from Frankfort, George D. Prentice was 
bombarding him from Louisville, and between the two, he 
was driven whimpering from the State. ^ 

The physical courage of Kendall may be read in his en- 
counters with irate victims. In one controversy he was 
spared the necessity of killing an assailant with a dirk by the 
timely interference of friends. In another he put an opponent 
to flight by cracking a whip and displaying the sparkling 
silver handle in the sun. He never ran. 

Under his editorship the "Argus" became a powerful 
political factor in Kentucky. He inaugurated the plan of 
printing legislative speeches, specialized on political news, 
intelligently discussed international affairs, launched a cam- 
paign in favor of public schools, reviewed contemporary 
books, dipped into religious subjects with his "Sunday Re- 
flections," and significantly began a fight against the Na- 
tional Bank in a series of articles combating the Supreme 

* Henry Watterson's oration on Prentice, "Compromises of Life." 



148 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Court decision as to its constitutionality. If, thirteen years 
later, he was not to flinch under the lashings of the Bank 
press, it may have been because he had become seasoned 
to the punishment more than a decade before when he was 
described as a "political incendiary." 

His friendly relations with Clay were maintained at least 
until the autumn of 1827, when, on a trip to New Hampshire, 
he wrote his wife of dining with the orator in Washington. 
But the campaign of 1828 found Kendall and the "Argus" 
valiant in the cause of Jackson, with Clay and his friends 
"casting aspersions upon his motives and character." ^ In 
revenge for these attacks he sought the privilege of taking 
the electoral vote of Kentucky to Washington. Meanwhile, 
after the election, and before his departure, he had been 
informed by an emissary from the Hermitage that Jackson 
intended to offer him an appointment. 

The Kendall lingering at the capital awaiting an appoint- 
ment presents an interesting study. It is disappointing to 
note a certain humility and manner usually associated with 
the lower order of place-hunters. He was evidently ardent 
in his pursuit of a position. His inexperience is disclosed in 
his disgust on finding so many obscure politicians pretending 
to the distinction of having elected Jackson. And yet, so 
anxious was he for place, that he was willing to accept one 
paying an inadequate salary, and he wrote his wife that in 
that event he might persuade Duff Green to pay him $1000 
a year for writing for the "Telegraph." ^ During the weeks 
of waiting before the inauguration, he was not a little em- 
barrassed for funds, and yet, under these drab conditions, 
he did not lack for invitations of a social nature. Meeting 
General Macomb and finding him "a Jackson man," he 
expressed the hope that he might "find him a valuable 
acquaintance." ' Meanwhile he was investigating houses and 

* Kendall's Autobiography, 303. 
2 Ibid., 278. ' Ibid., 279. 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 149 

rents, and concluded to economize by taking a house in 
Georgetown. "The house I contemplate taking," he wrote, 
"is in a charming neighborhood on First Street, near Cox's 
Row." 

Receiving his appointment as Fourth Auditor, he dropped 
from public view. Dinners and parties saw him no more. He 
immediately assumed the role of a recluse. Taking his duties 
seriously, he uncovered the crimes of his predecessor and 
sent him to jail. His rules for the conduct of subordinates 
were such as to merit the approval of business men — rules 
that the office-holder of those days scarcely understood. 
After a week in office he wrote his wife: "The labor is very 
light, and when I am master of the laws under which I act, 
will consist of little more than looking at accounts and sign- 
ing my name." Thus we find him systematizing his work 
to dedicate the greater portion of his time to the political 
work of the Administration. "Hamilton," said Martin Van 
Buren, a month later, "Kendall is to be an influential man. 
I wish the President would invite him to dinner, and if you 
have no objection, as you are so intimate with the General, 
I wish you would propose to him to invite Kendall to meet 
us at dinner to-morrow." ^ The invitation was extended and 
accepted, and the Red Fox, who had a genius for picking 
men, was notably attentive to the timid subordinate. 

During the five years he held his inferior post, Kendall 
became more powerful than any Cabinet Minister in the 
determination of Jacksonian policies. A little later, a con- 
temporary observer of men at the capital described him as 
"secretive, yet audacious in his political methods, a power- 
ful and ready writer, and the author of many of Jackson's 
ablest State papers." ^ There in his office we may picture 
him, alone, with pad and pencil, preparing elaborate politi- 
cal war maps, and literature for propaganda, or in earnest 

' Hamilton's Reminiscence.'!, 130. 

* Rufus Rockwell Wilson, Washington the Capital City, i, 263. 



150 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

conversation with Lewis and other members of the Kitchen 
Cabinet, forging thunderbolts with which to smite the foe. 
And it was very soon after he had left this subordinate post 
that Harriet Martineau was impressed with the uncanny 
mystery of the "invincible Amos Kendall." 

"I was fortunate enough," she wrote, "to catch a glimpse 
of the invincible Amos Kendall, one of the most remarkable 
men in America. He is supposed to be the moving spring of 
the Administration; the thinker, the planner, the doer; but 
it is all in the dark. Documents are issued, the excellence of 
which prevents them from being attributed to the persons 
that take the responsibility for them; a correspondence is 
kept up all over the country, for which no one seems answer- 
able; work is done of goblin extent and with goblin speed, 
which makes men look about them with superstitious wonder; 
and the invincible Amos Kendall has the credit for it all. 
President Jackson's letters to his Cabinet are said to be Ken- 
dall's; the report on Sunday mails is attributed to Kendall; 
the letters sent from Washington to remote country news- 
papers, whence they are collected and published in the 
* Globe ' as demonstrations of public opinion, are pronounced 
to be written by Kendall; and it is some relief that he now, 
having the ofiBce of Postmaster-General, affords opportunity 
for open attack upon this twilight personage. He is undoubt- 
edly a great genius. He unites with all his 'great talents for 
silence' a splendid audacity. 

"It is clear he could not do the work he does if he went 
into society like other men. He did, however, one evening. 
. . . The moment I went in, intimations reached me from all 
quarters, amid nods and winks, 'Kendall is here,' 'There he 
is.' I saw at once that his plea for seclusion (bad health) is 
no false one. The extreme sallowness of his complexion, the 
hair of such perfect whiteness as is rarely seen in a man of 
middle age, testified to his disease.^ His countenance does not 

* Kendall is thus described at forty-five. 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 151 

help the superstitious to throw off their dread of him. He 
probably does not desire this superstition to melt away, for 
there is no calculating how much influence is given the Jack- 
son Administration by the universal belief that there is a 
concealed eye and hand behind the machinery of Govern- 
ment, by which everything could be foreseen, and the hardest 
deeds done. A member of Congress told me this night that 
he had watched through five sessions for a sight of Kendall, 
and had never obtained one until now. Kendall was leaning 
on a chair, his head bent down, and eyes glancing up at a 
member of Congress with whom he was in earnest conversa- 
tion, and in a moment he was gone." ^ 

Such was the cleverest, most audacious, and powerful 
member of the Kitchen Cabinet — a man who made history 
that historians have written and ascribed to others who 
merely uttered the words or registered the will of this in- 
domitable journalist and poHtician. 

n 

When Jackson left the Hermitage, he was accompanied by 
Major William B. Lewis, who had been intimately identified 
with his campaign for the Presidency. This unobtrusive man 
found lodgment with his chief at Gadsby's, where he inter- 
ested himself in analyzing the characters of office-seekers for 
the guidance of his friend. After walking with Jackson from 
the hotel to the Capitol, and seeing him inducted into office, 
he announced his plan to return to the quiet life of Tennessee. 

"Why, Major," exclaimed the astonished Jackson, "you 
are not going to leave me here alone, after doing more than 
any other man to bring me here!" 

Moved by the sincerity of the appeal, Lewis remained on in 
Washington through the eight years of the reign, living at the 
White House, and enjoying a greater personal intimacy with 
the President than any other politician of the time. Accepting 

^ Retrospect of Western Travel, i, 155-57. 



152 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

an insignificant auditorship at the Treasury as an excuse lor 
staying on, he interpreted his real function as that of a poHti- 
cal bodyguard. He came and went in the President's private 
apartments at will. No formalities were interposed between 
these two strangely different men. No secrets formed a veil. 
In the midst of the bitter fights against his idol, Lewis moved 
quietly and uncannilj'^ about, gauging sentiment, determin- 
ing the drift, analyzing men and motives, guarding Jackson 
against the surprise attack. "When the ferocious onslaughts 
were at their worst in the Senate, Lewis could be found 
somewhere in the shadows of the chamber watching every 
movement of the enemy, and critically, if not always wisely, 
passing judgment upon the strategy of the Administration 
forces; and when the fight was over, he hastened to the 
White House, sure to find Jackson sitting up in his room 
with the picture of Rachel and her Bible on the table before 
him, awaiting the report. 

There was this difference between Lewis and the other 
members of the Kitchen Cabinet — they all loved Jackson; 
but where the others thought of him as the personification 
of a party, Lewis could only think of him as the friend of the 
Hermitage. He had fought and wrought for his election, not 
to score a party victory, but to vindicate the man. Of Jack- 
son's comfort, happiness, and prestige he was supremely 
jealous, but there were times when he rebelled against the 
audacious proposals of others, more given to thinking of 
party, to stake the General's reputation and success upon a 
party issue. 

He has been called the "great father of wire-pullers," ^ 
a closet man's definition of a great manipulator of men. At 
the time the public began to speculate on the presidential 
possibilities of Jackson, the Major was his neighbor. He 
was not a penniless adventurer or soldier of fortune. There 
was nothing in politics for himself for which he cared a 

* Sumner's Ldje oj Jackson. 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 153 

bauble. He was living comfortably on his large productive 
plantation, with slaves in the fields, and books in the library. 
Jackson had learned to love and trust him years before when 
he was chief quartermaster on the General's staff in the 
campaign of 1812-15, and in the final settlement the Govern- 
ment was found to be indebted to him to the amount of three 
cents — which was never paid. When the Jackson move- 
ment became serious, the Major, knowing the General's 
strength and weaknesses, took charge of all confidential 
matters. To just what extent he contributed to Jackson's 
election no one ever knew — but all knew that he had played 
an important part. He conducted all the correspondence, 
and carefully scrutinized, and often revised, the General's 
letters; and another of his functions was to serve as a sort of 
valet for all State occasions when Jackson should be care- 
fully groomed. 

He possessed the qualities that Jackson lacked. Where 
Jackson was impulsive, he was deliberative; where Jackson 
was prejudiced, he was tolerant; where Jackson was rash, 
he was prudent, if not timid; where Jackson was a man of 
action, he was a man of thought; and while Jackson had 
ideas, he furnished the vehicle to bear them in parade. Dur- 
ing the many months preceding the election of 1828, this 
practical, polished politician was studying the political war 
map, and quietly planning successful battles in this State 
and that. He knew the politics of each State, the personali- 
ties and prejudices entering in, the dominating motives of 
all politicians, even to those never known outside their own 
little communities, and he knew how to play one force 
against the other without appearing in the game. Knowing 
as he did all the cross-currents of local politics, nothing ever 
arose that he could not deal with intelligently. 

During the eight years in the White House, Lewis was a 
whole regiment of Swiss guards — always on duty and alert. 
"Keep William B. Lewis to ferret out and make known to 



154 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

you all the plots and intrigues hatching against your Ad- 
ministration, and you are safe," was Jackson's advice to 
Polk when the latter was entering the White House. We 
shall find him implicated in some of the most important j 
events of his time, making history, and yet escaping the 
historian. His great advantage was his perfect understand- 
ing of Jackson's character. He often became a buffer, pro- 
tecting the President against unpleasant revelations. If he 
thought a disclosure necessary as a protection to the grim 
old warrior, he told his secret; if he thought it would merely 
arouse to useless wrath, he buried it; and sometimes, as in 
the case of the Crawford letter, he bided his time for months 
before revealing it. All the politicians of his day passed in 
review before him, Democrats and Whigs, Nullifiers and 
Nationalists, friends and enemies, and he silently catalogued 
them through a Bertillon system of his own. His advice to 
Jackson was that of a friend to a friend, seated about the 
blazing White House hearth, discussing politics and men in 
the midst of the tobacco smoke, as they might have done 
in the private life of the Hermitage. 4 

He did not possess Kendall's genius for programmes, nor 
Blair's for propaganda, but he was invaluable in the field of 
personahties. He alone of the three sometimes doubted and 
drew back in fear. When Jackson vetoed the Maysville Bill, 
Van Buren found Lewis's countenance "to the last degree de- 
spondent." 1 He dreaded and doubted the effect of the veto 
of the measure rechartering the Bank, and later, the with- 
drawal of the deposits. Having been Federalistic himself, in 
other days, he had a fellow feeling for Louis McLane when 
that politician found himself in trouble. But doubting and 
trembling though he sometimes was, Van Buren has testified 
that "no considerations or temptations, through many of 
which he was obliged to pass, could weaken his fidelity to the 
General or his desire for the success of his Administration." * 

* Van Buren's Autobiography, 325. " Ibid., 579. 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 155 

In the early stages of the Bank controversy, he alone of the 
members of the Kitchen Cabinet maintained friendly rela- 
tions with Biddle.^ 

Concerning his status among the Jacksonian leaders, 
biographers and historians have radically disagreed. Even 
among the later writers this disagreement persists, and where 
one dismisses the theory that he was a politician, far-sighted 
and astute, as without suflBcient evidence,^ another concludes 
that "in a day of astute politicians, Major Lewis was one of 
the cleverest." ' The truth appears to be that while he was 
not a moulder of policies and creator of programmes, he 
was one of the most clever manipulators of men and masters 
of personal intrigue who ever served a President. In the 
Kitchen Cabinet he was the personal manager — the political 
secretary. 

m 

The most militant of the Kitchen Cabinet was Isaac Hill, 
whose name was anathema to the Federalists of New Eng- 
land. A poor boy educated in a printshop, slight and lame, 
hurling picturesque phrases and bitter reproaches at the 
powerful enemy, excoriating it with his satire and sarcasm, 
and slashing it with the keen blade of his wit, it is not sur- 
prising that the impression handed down by the Intellectuals 
of the Opposition is unfavorable. Where they have not dis- 
missed him with a shrug, they have damned him as a dunce 
— and largely because he gave virility to a minority and 
made it militant, and, despite overwhelming odds, estab- 
lished in the hotbed of proscriptive Federalism a vigorous 
Democratic paper which was quoted from New Orleans to 

* In the Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919) are 
numerous letters between the banker and Lewis, indicative of a desire on the part of 
the latter to conciliate the former and save his chief from the hazards of a bitter 
fight. 

^ Professor J. S. Bassett's Lije of Jackson, u, 399. 

' Professor Frederic Austin Ogg's Reign of Andrew Jackson. 



156 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Detroit, and from Boston to St. Louis. If he lacked the 
depth and the constructive faculty of Kendall, and the 
literary finish of Blair, he possessed a genius as a phrase- 
monger which spread his fame and served his party, and in 
the heat of a campaign, one of his stinging paragraphs was 
as effective as one of Kendall's leaders. There was no 
finesse in his fighting — he fought out in the open, in full 
range of his foe, and with any weapon on which he could lay 
his hands. If the intensity of his partisanship amounted to 
unfairness, it had been made so by the intolerance and 
bigotry of the Opposition of his section. Since no member of 
the Kitchen Cabinet more insistently demanded of Jackson 
the adoption of the spoils system, it is not unprofitable to 
inquire into the origin of his state of mind. 

His life was a tragedy. Born in abject poverty, a cripple 
from childhood, he had seen his father and grandfather 
become mental wrecks. Under this cloud, in this state of 
penury, he looked out upon the world. Shut off by his in- 
firmity from physical labor, he had no money for an educa- 
tion, and he lived on an unpromising New Hampshire farm, 
where there were no schools, libraries, or books, and few 
papers. But before he was eight he had read the Bible 
through. Two years before he had read the story of the 
Revolution from books borrowed, and had supplemented his 
reading by having a relative, who had fought with Washing- 
ton, describe the burning of Charlestown and the Concord 
fight. There was infinite pathos in his passion for the printed 
page. But college was out of the question, the printing-ofiBce 
the only possible substitute, and thus, after a long appren- 
ticeship, he took over a wobbling paper at Concord and be- 
came an editor. 

Throwing discretion to the winds and with a sublime 
audacity, he took up the challenge of the powerful majority; 
and it required courage to pursue that course in the New 
Hampshire of 1809. To be a Democrat (Republican) there 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS ( 157 

in those days was to offend God; boldly to preach hostility 
to Federalism was to proclaim blasphemy and invite destruc- 
tion. The Federalistic press opened their batteries of abuse 
upon the obscure youth. One paper solemnly announced 
the discovery that he was a direct descendant of the witches 
who had suffered at Salem. Hill returned a spirited fire, and 
rejoiced in the combat. "I have hit them, for they flutter,'* 
he said.^ In the campaign of 1810 he fairly galvanized the 
prostrate friends of the National Administration into life 
and incurred an unbelievable hatred of the Opposition. 
When this crippled boy was brutally assaulted on the streets 
of Concord, the Federalist press of New Hampshire gloated 
over the attack. Nor was it above sneering at his infirmity. 

Throughout the War of 1812 he was a pillar of strength to 
the Republic in New Hampshire. During the darkest days it 
was said that he was worth a thousand soldiers in heartening 
the patriots. 2 With the approach of the campaign of 1828, 
Hill's paper, the "Patriot," began to bombard the Adams 
Administration, and Clay, who was to shudder later at the 
wickedness of the spoils system, promptly deprived him of 
the public printing. 

Thus the campaign of 1828 began. The stinging para- 
graphs of Hill made the rounds of the Democratic press of 
the country, and in his own State he was shamelessly as- 
sailed. Not satisfied with maligning his personal character, 
his enemies stooped to references to the insanity of his father 
in disseminating the story that he was crazy. ^ In view of 
this cruel personal persecution, ij; was but human that, on 
the election of Jackson, his voice should have been for war on 
all the Federalist oflSce-holders. Thus his psychology is easily 

^ Bradley's Life of Hill. 

2 General Leavenworth's letter, quoted in Bradley's Life of Hill. 

' Hill took notice of this brutality: "There is an Almighty Power Who tempers 
the wind to the shorn lambs, "Who wiL preserve us from such a calamity, and Who 
will not suffer oiu- intellectual visioD to be dimmed until our work shall be accom- 
plished." 



158 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

understood. Because of his political convictions, he had 
been proscribed. A cripple, he had been personally at- 
tacked in the streets. In suffering he had been ridiculed. The 
insanity of his father had been made the subject of vulgar 
jests. His personal character had been assailed. And in the 
hour of victory, all the pent-up hatred of the years was let 
loose upon the vanquished foe. 

Hill was the Marat of the Kitchen Cabinet, the fanatic, 
calling for heads — more heads — and unseemly in his mirth 
as they fell. 

In appearance he was not prepossessing. Below the me- 
dium height, he was spare as well as crippled. In his high 
forehead and the expression of his eyes his intellect was indi- 
cated, and he carried himself with that haughty air of superi- 
ority which men, forced to fight for their existence, are apt 
to assume. This was described by his enemies as "demonia- 
cal." He always dressed plainly as a workingman. Without 
imagination or dreams, severely practical and to the point, 
conscious of his limitations, and passionately devoted to both 
his convictions and prejudices, there was nothing about him 
to appeal to the fashionable or the intellectually elect. In 
no sense dazzling in his gifts, hesitating instead of eloquent, 
shocking the Senate of his time by reading his speeches, and 
proud of his profession, he was not pointed out to travelers 
who wrote books, nor lionized in the drawing-rooms, nor 
dignified by the complimentary notices of the women letter- 
writers or diarists of his day. He has come down largely as 
his enemies have painted him, and their very hate of him 
discloses his effectiveness as a politician. 

He was one of the Republic's first uncompromising parti- 
sans — "My party, right or wrong." 

IV 

An Administration and party paper had been considered 
important in the political circles of the Republic from the 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 159 

beginning, but it was left to the editors of the Kitchen Cab- 
inet to develop it to the highest degree of efficiency. The 
"National Journal," Court paper of the Adams Administra- 
tion, had awakened the Opposition to an appreciation of the 
practical value of a powerful party paper. Duff Green and 
the "Telegraph," in a sense, met the requirements, but even 
then there were Democrats of influence and aspirations 
who found something lacking. To Van Buren, the editor, 
devoted to Calhoun, was unsatisfactory. It is inconceivable 
that he felt the need for a more aggressive pen for the Oppo- 
sition. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1826, while planning 
a more vigorous attack on the Adams Administration, he 
had an " animated conversation " concerning the need of a 
strictly party paper with Calhoun, at the latter's house in 
Georgetown. The Carolinian urged the adoption of the 
"Telegraph" as the party organ, with Van Buren pressing 
the advantage of prevailing upon Thomas Ritchie of the 
"Richmond Enquirer" to accept the editorship of a new 
party paper at the capital.^ Failing to persuade Calhoun, the 
Red Fox cleverly approached Senator Tazewell of Virginia, 
an ardent friend of the Carolinian, and persuaded him to 
join in an invitation to the Richmond journalist.^ Ritchie 
declined, however, on the ground of his attachment to 
Virginia and his reluctance to leave old friends and asso- 
ciates.' Thus, at the beginning of the Administration, it 
I seemed that Duff Green and the "Telegraph" were destined 
to become the pen and organ of the Jacksonian Democracy. 
At a White House levee in the winter of 1830-31, under the 
very nose of Jackson, and under his roof, the intriguing Green 
drew the proprietor of a Washington printing-house aside to 
tell him confidentially of the hastening rupture of Jackson 
and Calhoun, and of the plans in incubation for the advance- 
ment of the presidential aspirations of the latter. Calhoun 

* Van Buren's Autobiography, 541. 

« Ambler's Thomas Ritchie. 109. » Ibid., 247. 



160 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

organs were to be acquired or established in all the strategic 
political points in the country, and when the rupture came 
these were to follow the lead of the "Telegraph" in a nation- 
wide denunciation of Jackson. The printer was offered the 
editorship of one of these papers, and a liberal amount for 
his Washington plant. Thoroughly devoted to the political 
fortunes of the President, and not relishing the idea of being 
the depositary of a secret which threatened the President's 
position, the printer consulted freely with his friends, and, on 
their advice, carried the story to the White House. 

Benton tells us that the story did not surprise Jackson, who 
was "preparing for it." ^ Thus we are told that in the sum- 
mer of 1830 he had been impressed with a powerful editorial 
attack on Nullification in the "Frankfort Argus," had made 
inquiries as to the identity of the author, and had authorized 
the extension of an invitation to assume the editorship of an 
Administration paper in the capital. The version of Benton ^j 
differs in material points from the version of Amos Kendall,^ 
who was far more intimately identified with the launching of 
the new paper than either Benton or Van Buren. Here we 
have it that the idea was not Jackson's, and that when plans 
for a Jacksonian organ were presented to him "he entirely 
disapproved." At that time Jackson was unable to bring him- 
self to believe in the treachery of Green. When ultimately, 
however, he saw the drift, he gave his "tacit consent." 

Here Kendall's story clashes with the theory, put forth by 
Green, that Van Buren was the directing genius behind the 
whole project. When the President finally gave his "tacit 
consent," the practical politicians of the Kitchen Cabinet 
took charge. The various governmental offices were visited 
for an understanding as to what portion of the Government 
printing could be expected. When Van Buren, then at the 

1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, i, 128, gives the version of the establishment of 
the Globe which Van Buren in his Autobiography quotes. 

2 Kendall's Autobiography, 370-74. j 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS ICl " 

head of the State Department, was approached, he an- 
nounced that he would not give a dollar of the printing of 
his department, on the ground that " were such a paper estab- 
lished its origin would be attributed to him, and he was re- 
solved to be able to say that he had nothing to do with it.'* 
This is typical of Van Buren, and is no doubt true. But the 
responses from all the other departments were satisfactory 
and the plans were pushed. 

Having positively settled upon the paper, the next step 
was to find a managerial genius. In a conference between 
Kendall and Barry, the Postmaster-General, the latter sug- 
gested the availability of Frank P. Blair, then writing occa- 
sionally for the "Frankfort Argus," though not attached to 
the paper in a regular capacity. The correspondence with 
Blair was conducted by Kendall. The Kentuckian, surprised, 
momentarily hesitated, and it was not until Kendall had 
agreed to bear an equal part of the responsibility that he 
consented. 

While Blair was getting his affairs in order in Kentucky, 
Kendall proceeded with the arrangements in Washington, 
and when the editor reached the capital nothing remained 
unsettled but the name and a motto. The two agreed to call 
the paper the "Globe," and the motto, suggested by Blair, 
"The World is Governed Too Much." J-^^ 

Thus there appears no reason to doubt that Kendall's ver- 
sion is the correct one, that Jackson was no more a leader in 
the movement than Van Buren, and that the idea was con- 
ceived by the little group of new and practical politicians, 
then coming to the fore, and who, while friends of Jackson, 
were interested in "measures more than men.'* 

V 
The arrival of Frank Blair in Washington was an historical 
event, not appreciated at the time, and scarcely properly ap- 
praised to this day. But the ugly, illy dressed stranger, who 



162 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

presented himself at the White House immediately after 
reaching the capital, gave little promise, in his appearance, of 
the power within him. Instead of a large, raw-boned, husky i 
Kentuckian expected, Major Lewis, who met him, was con- | 
fronted by a short, slender man, poorly garbed, and rather 
timid and retiring than otherwise. The Major was frankly 
disappointed and probably disgusted. But when the editor 
was presented to Jackson, that genius took note neither of his 
dress nor appearance. Although expecting foreign diplomats 
and distinguished statesmen to dinner, he could see no reason 
why the unimposing little man, with the ill-fitting clothes 
and the ugly visage, should not remain as his guest. Assum- 
ing that he would be alone, Blair accepted, and, to his horror, 
he found himself in the presence of ministers in all the splen- 
dor of their official regalia. Unaccustomed to such show, and 
feeling the conspicuousness of his garb, he fled to a corner, 
hoping to escape notice. But Jackson, who never judged * 
men by their appearance, least of all by their clothes, sought 
him out with the kindest intentions, and placed him beside 
him at the table. This act of courtesy, painful to Blair at the < 
time, was understood and appreciated, and not only won his 
ardent support, but his deepest affection. 

Although unknown to Jackson, who would have been unin- 
terested if he had known, Frank Blair was qualified by blood 
to sit at the table of the first gentleman of the land. His 
grandfather had been acting president of Princeton when 
Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration, was summoned to 
New Jersey to accept the presidency. Born forty years be- 
fore becoming editor of the "Globe," he had displayed, in col- 
lege, the remarkable intellectual qualities that were to make 
him the adviser of Presidents, and one of the most influen- 
tial moulders of public opinion of his time. He distinguished 
himself as the best rhetorician and linguist of his class. ^ The 

* George Baber's Blairs of KetUucky, Register of Kentucky Historical Society, 

vol. XIV. 




FRANCIS P. BLAIR 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 163 

weakness of his voice discouraged his ambition for forensic 
distinction. In the Governor's Mansion at Frankfort he was 
married, early in life, to a charming woman noted for "her 
extraordinary mental force and her sagacity." ^ 

Like Kendall and Barry, Blair had begun his political 
career as an ardent supporter of Clay, and like them, had 
broken with him on the "bargain" story. According to 
Blair's contention through life. Clay had confided to him in 
advance that, if such a contingency as did develop should 
arise in the congressional caucus, he would throw his support 
to Adams, and that he had protested against the plan. Whether 
true or not, that event marked the end of Blair's interest 
in the political ambitions of the man from Ashland. From 
1823 to 1827 he played a conspicuous part as one of the 
principals in the famous fight between the New and the Old 
Courts which all but reduced the State to a condition border- 
ing on anarchy. This part of his career is diflScult to under- 
stand. The New Court Party, with which he was aflBliated, 
was a revolutionary organization mustering its strength from 
the indebtedness and poverty of the people. It proposed to re- 
lieve the condition of the poor through methods frankly rev- 
olutionary and worse. During the period of the court fight, 
and while acting as the clerk of the revolutionary court, two 
events completely changed the course of his career. He broke 
with Clay and allied himself with the Democratic Party; and 
he became a regular contributor to the columns of the 
"Frankfort Argus," and a journalist by profession. On aban- 
doning the court clerkship he immediately identified him- 
self with Kendall in the publication of the paper, and the 
I combined genius of these two extraordinary men converted 
the little Western journal into one of the most powerful and 
popular of the Jacksonian organs. All the credit appears to 
have gone to Kendall and none to his associate, for after the 

1 George Saber's Blairs of Kentucky, Regwter of .Kentucky Historical Society, 

i vol. XIV. 



164 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

election it was Kendall and not Blair who was assured of rec- 
ognition from the incoming Administration. After Kendall 
went to Washington, Blair, without the slightest notion of 
ever following, remained in Frankfort, writing special articles 
in support of Jacksonian policies for the "Argus." Thus he 
plied his trenchant pen against the Bank, excoriated Nulli- 
fication, attacked Clay, and damned Calhoun. He had suf- 
fered financial reverses, been forced to sacrifice much prop- 
erty, and was in distressed circumstances. Later, when he 
was assailed by Senator Poindexter as having gone to Wash- 
ington as a "beggar," he was indignantly to repel the charge. 
"The editor of the 'Globe' resigned, on leaving Frankfort to 
take charge of the press here," he wrote, "the clerkship of the 
circuit court, the fees of which alone averaged $2000 annually, 
and the presidency of the Bank of the Commonwealth, and 
other employments which made his annual income upward of 
$3000 — a sum twice as great as the salaries of the judges of 
the Supreme Court, and a third greater than that of the Gov- 
ernor of the State." ^ Nevertheless, it was the state of his 
finances which had necessitated the temporary suppression of 
the fact that he had accepted the editorship of the "Globe." 

Once in the editorial chair, he assumed a militant attitude, 
and frankly announced that the paper would be devoted 
"to the discussion and maintenance of the principles which 
brought General Jackson into oflBce"; and as early as April, 
1831, four months after the first appearance of the paper, he 
began vigorously to advocate the reelection of his idol in the 
White House. 

The first issue appeared on December 7, 1830, published 
twice a week. In its initial days the inevitable quarrel be- 
tween Blair and Green simmered, and while the "Globe" and 
the "Telegraph" were nervously toying with their pistols, 
the actual fight did not commence until Green published the 
Calhoun letters. Thereafter the contest was acrimonious and 

1 Globe, Feb. 17, 1834. 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 165 

continuous. The immediate result of this battle was to im- 
press Blair with the necessity of a daily publication, requir- 
ing a much larger outlay in money than either Blair or Ken- 
dall or both were able to advance. This, however, did not dis- 
courage the plucky little Kentuckian in the least. He called 
upon the friends and supporters of Jackson in the capital and 
throughout the country to subscribe for six hundred copies 
and pay for them in advance at the rate of ten dollars per an- 
num. This money was easily collected, and thus, without the 
advance, by Blair, of a dollar of capital, the "Globe" was 
placed upon a firm and sure foundation. ^ 

The journalistic genius of the little editor almost imme- 
diately gave the paper first rank in importance among all the 
papers then published in the country. Some of his admirers 
have said that "he became the master of a style of composi- 
tion that compared favorably with that of Junius." ^ How- 
ever that may be, he unquestionably was forceful, entertain- 
ing, and at times, eloquent. He could be dignified and argu- 
mentative without being dull. He knew how to appeal at 
once to the lover of pure English and the uneducated artisan 
of the city or the frontiersman in the wilderness. He was a 
pioneer among the journalists who have known how to pro- 
duce a paper that would be as welcome on the library table of 
the student as in the hut of the farmer on the outskirts of civ- 
ilization. The secret of his strength was his direct method. 
There was nothing of equivocation or compromise in his char- 
acter. He did not qualify away all force for the sake of con- 
servatism. He liked to cross the Rubicon, burn the bridges, 
and devastate the country. Any one could understand pre- 
cisely what he meant. He was intense in his convictions, and 
he had the audacity, inseparable from political genius, to 

* This is Kendall's story in his Aictohiogra'phy. He gives no hint that Jackson con- 
tributed a penny. George Henry Payne, in his History of Journalism in the United 
States, says that the establishment of the Globe cost Jackson ip50,000 a year, but as 
this version is Green's, it is not at all convincing or probable. 

^ Baber's Blairs of Kentucky. 



166 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

move in a straight line, prepared to meet the enemy even 
on ground of the latter's choosing. His gift of satire and sar- 
casm was a joy to his fellow partisans who delighted in 
him. At first intended as their spokesman, he became their 
leader. Politicians soon learned that it was not necessary to 
carry suggestions to the editor of the "Globe" — they went 
to his sanctum to get them. Capable of a skillful use of the 
rapier, he preferred the meat-axe. Nothing pleased him so 
much as the crushing of the skulls of the enemies of Jackson, 
and if these should happen to be Democrats, all the greater 
was the jo}'^ of the operation. 

This slashing, brilliant style delighted Jackson, who, 
strangely enough, had a profound admiration for the fluent 
writer. The old warrior took him to his bosom. That the edi- 
tor of the "Court journal'* should be mistaken was unthink- 
able to the President; and when any one asked him for in- 
formation on any subject with which he was unfamiliar, he 
would invariably reply: "Go to Frank Blair — he knows 
everything." And Jackson believed it. Firmly convinced 
that the people were entitled to all public information, when 
any such came to his attention he would instantly say, " Give 
it to Blair." ^ He consulted the little ugly Kentuckian con- 
stantly on all matters of domestic policy, on party matters 
and patronage, and even on delicate points concerned with 
international programmes. The intimacy of this relationship 
soon trickled down from the capital to the party workers in 
the most remote sections, and, in time, the paper took its 
place with the Bible in all well-regulated Democratic house- 
holds. Jackson himself is said to have read nothing during 
his Presidency but the Bible, his correspondence, and the 
"Globe." ^ The Democratic press throughout the country 
got its cue from Blair's editorials, and he, astute politician 
and advertiser, took pains to cultivate intimate relations 
with all papers supporting the Administration. Many arti- 

^ Van Buren's Autobiography, 323. * Perley's Reminiscences, i, 191. 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 167 

cles, written by Kendall in the office of the "Globe," and sent 
to country papers for publication as their own, were after- 
wards collected and reproduced in the Administration organ 
to indicate the trend of public opinion. 

Naturally the enemies of the Administration in Congress 
looked upon Blair and his paper with venomous hatred, and 
not without cause. No head was too distinguished for his 
bludgeon, and it descended with resounding whacks upon the 
craniums of the greatest as well as the least of these, leading 
to many furious protests and denunciations on the floor of the 
House and Senate. The "Congressional Globe" is thickly 
sprinkled with references to the paper. There was nothing of 
novelty in a statesman rising to a question of personal privi- 
lege to explain that the editor had done him an injustice in 
describing him as a liar, an anarchist, or a traitor. Occasion- 
ally Clay, or some lesser light, would rise to protest against 
the action of the President in conveying information, to 
which the Congress was entitled, through the columns of his 
organ. Henry A. Wise would complain that "the Secretary 
of the Treasury has already informed Congress and the coun- 
try, through the columns of the * Globe' of Saturday last," 
that a certain policy would be pursued.^ Or perhaps he would 
merely desire to explain that a certain editorial was a "total 
perversion of the facts." ^ Or maybe it was John Quincy 
Adams who took the floor to describe the editor of the 
"Globe" as "the ambassador of the Executive," an ambassa- 
dor being "a distinguished person sent abroad to lie for the 
benefit of his country." ^ One member would secure recog- 
nition to "indignantly repel the charge made against him 
by the 'Globe' of being an anarchist and a revolutionist." ^ 
Even Webster was not impervious to the darts of the jour- 
nalist, and did not think it beneath his dignity formally to 

» Cong. Globe, April 14, 1836. « Ibid., April 20, 1836. 

» Ibid.. May 13, 1836. 

* Mr. Williams of Kentucky, ibid.. May 30, 1836. 



168 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

protest against an editorial paragraph, "flagitiously false," 
which had reflected upon him as chairman of the Finance 
Committee.^ 

With the politicians, the country press, and the party 
leaders in the Congress treating the "Globe" as the editorial 
reflection of the President, it is not surprising that the dip- 
lomatic corps should have accepted the general assumption, 
and that the foreign oflBces of Europe should have attached 
no little significance to any of its observations on interna- 
tional affairs. Of the truth of this we have one very striking 
illustration. 

While Livingston was Secretary of State, James Buchanan 
was the American Minister at St. Petersburg, charged with 
the negotiation of a highly important commercial treaty. 
All went well until the terms of the treaty had been practi- 
cally agreed upon, when he had an interview with the bril- 
liant Count Nesselrode, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who pro- 
tested against what he termed the unfriendly attitude of the 
American press toward the Emperor and Russia, apropos of 
Poland. Not only, he complained, had the " Globe," which he 
characterized as "the Government paper," failed to correct 
the false impressions of the press generally, but it "had it- 
self been distinguished by falsehoods." He hoped, therefore, 
that the President "would adopt measures to remove this 
cause of complaint in the future, at least against the oflScial 
paper in Washington. " ^ Recovering as quickly as possible 
from his astonishment, Buchanan explained that the press in 
the United States was not subject to governmental super- 
vision, but the practical-minded Nesselrode was not at all 
impressed. He baldly charged that the "Globe" "formed an 
exception to the rule and was a paper over which the Govern- 
ment exercised a direct control." Such being the Russian 
understanding, the Count was disappointed at the failure of 

» Cong. Globe, June 3, 1836. ^ 

* Buchanan to Livingston, Buchanan's Works, n, 299. 



KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS 169 

Livingston, when he had met the Russian Minister to the 
! United States in New York City, to offer assurances that no 
more offensive articles would appear in that journal, and 
even more chagrined to learn, after that interview, that the 
i "Globe" had been "'more violent than before." Buchanan 
'was forced to concede that the "Globe" was commonly 
called the "official paper," but earnestly protested that it was 
free from governmental control. He was "persuaded that even 
the influence of Mr. Livingston over the editor" was not much 
greater than his own, and he had no influence at all. Here 
Buchanan was on safe ground, but Nesselrode was not so 
easily convinced. With a disconcerting smile of incredulity, 
he suggested that "General Jackson himself must certainly 
have some influence over the editor." Finding himself in a 
blind alley, Buchanan was lamely admitting that the Presi- 
dent might have such influence, when Nesselrode, taking 
instant advantage of the admission, and without waiting 
for the conclusion of the sentence, requested him to ask Jack- 
son to "exercise it for the purpose of inducing the 'Globe' 
to pursue a more cautious course hereafter." Buchanan, 
glad of the opportunity to drop the subject, hastened to as- 
sure the Count that it would afford him great pleasure "to 
make his wishes known to the President." ^ 

Thus, such was the genius of Blair and Kendall in impress- 
ing themselves upon the affairs of the Nation that, within 
three years after the establishment of the "Globe," they had 
become political powers in the Republic, and so much inter- 
national figures that their editorials were carefully read in 
the foreign offices of Europe. 

Of the members of the Kitchen Cabinet, Lewis's influence 
in determining the political fate of men, and Hill's in estab- 
lishing the system of spoils, were of no small importance, but 
the publicity work of Blair and Kendall, more than any other 
one thing, contributed to the solidarity of the party, and the 

'II ^ Buchanan's Works, ii, 300-01. 



170 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

general popularity of Jackson and his measures. Benton, 
Van Buren, Forsyth, were masterful managers of Jackson's 
congressional battles, where he frequently lost to Clay, but i 
the practical politicians of the Kitchen Cabinet, through the : 
free use of patronage and the press, aroused and organized ] 
the masses with the ballots for the succession of successful ] 
battles at the polls. 



t 



CHAPTER VII 

CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 

I 

Henry Clay sat in the little library at Ashland reading a 
letter from Webster. "You must be aware of the strong 
desire manifested in many parts of the country that you 
should come into the Senate," the letter ran. "The wish is 
entertained here as earnestly as elsewhere. We are to have an 
interesting and arduous session. Everything is to be attacked. 
An array is preparing much more formidable than has ever 
yet assaulted what we think the leading and important pub- 
lic interests. Not only the tariff, but the Constitution itself, 
in its elemental and fundamental provisions, will be assailed 
with talent, vigor, and union. Everything is to be debated 
as if nothing had ever been settled. It would be an infinite 
gratification to me to have your aid, or rather, your lead. I 
know nothing so likely to be useful. Everything valuable in 
the government is to be fought for and we need your arm 
in the fight." 

The meaning was perfectly clear to Clay. The man in the 
White House, contrary to Whig expectations, was disclosing 
masterful qualities of leadership. The veto of the Maysville 
and Lexington Turnpike Bills had left no room for doubt as 
to his attitude toward internal improvements. No Executive 
had ever before so freely exercised the power of presidential 
rejection. 1 On the tariff he was known to favor such reason- 
able reductions as would conciliate the Southern States, and 
his brief reference to the National Bank in his first Message, 
disconcerting in itself, had been followed by ominously hos- 

* The public improvement feature of internal improvement was of less importance 
|With the politician than the pork-barrel phase. See Schouler's History. 



172 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

tile action on the part of several State Legislatures.* Mean- 
while Jackson's candidacy for reelection was practically 
announced. Major Lewis, in his subterranean manner, had 
been busy and with the usual results. The "New York 
Courier and Enquirer,'* organ of Van Buren, was advocating 
his reelection, and the President's followers, quietly encour- 
aged by Kendall and Lewis, had placed him in nomination 
in the legislatures of five States. 

Under these conditions the old party of Adams grew res- 
tive and impatient for a strong leader, and instinctively 
turned to the magnetic figure of Ashland. Already his nomi- 
nation for the Presidency in 1832 was a foregone conclusion. 
The enthusiastic acclaim which had greeted him on his po- 
litical tours during his retirement had impressed his sanguine 
temperament as a sure omen of success. He would have pre- 
ferred to have remained in retirement pending the election, 
but the party demand for his leadership in Washington was 
insistent. The Opposition needed a figure around which it 
could rally, and as a party leader Webster was a failure. 
With much reluctance Clay decided to respond to the call. 
The election in Kentucky had been a keen disappointment, 
and the enemies of the Administration had a bare majority 
in the legislature, but it was enough, and he was elected. 

Early in November he reached the capital, "borne up by the 
undying spirit of ambition," looking " well and animated,'* 
to be received with "the most marked deference and re- 
spect." 2 From this time on, throughout Jackson's Presi- 
dency, he was to remain the brilliant, resourceful, bitter, 
and unscrupulous leader of the Opposition — as brilliant 
and remarkable an Opposition as has ever confronted a 
Government in this or any other country. 

And such a politician ! There have been few remotely like 
him, none his superior in personal popularity. His unpre- 

1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, i, 187. 

2 First Forty Years, Nov. 7, 1831. 




JOHN C. CALHOUN 
HENRY CLAY DANIEL WEBSTER 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 173 

cedented sway over a party was due, in large measure, to his 
remarkably fascinating personality, his audacity and dash, 
his amazing powers of ingratiation, and his superb eloquence 
which acted upon the spirit of the party workers like the 
sound of a bugle to a battle charger. No American orator, 
perhaps, has ever approached his effect upon a partisan au- 
dience. Fluent, and at times capable of passages of inspired 
eloquence, a consummate master of the implements of sar- 
casm and ridicule, his was the oratory that moves men to 
action. He could lash his followers to fury or move them to 
tears. His speeches often lacked literary finish, and, at times, 
in their colloquialisms descended beneath the dignity of the 
man's position, but even these occasional descents to buf- 
foonery contributed to his popularity. He often spoke the 
language of the people — Webster and Calhoun, never. The 
contribution of new ideas to a discussion was not his forte. 
But he could gather up the material at hand, and weave it 
into a speech of fervent declamation which created the mo- 
mentary impression that he was breaking virgin soil. His 
oratory was in his personality and his delivery. His voice 
was an exquisite musical instrument, with a clarion note 
that carried his words to the outskirts of the greatest throng. 
When he spoke, his expressive countenance glowed with his 
genius, his eyes flashed or caressed, his commanding figure 
seemed to grow, and in his combined dignity and grace he 
looked the part of the splendid commander of men, and the 
inspiring crusader of a cause. No man of his time, among all 
the great orators of that golden age, could so hold an audi- 
ence literally spell-bound, Prentiss alone approaching him. 

In personal intercourse, no politician ever possessed more 
of the seductive graces. There his magnetism was compel- 
ling. When he cared to put forth all his powers of attraction, 
no one could withstand his charm. Webster was godlike and 
compelled admiration; Clay was human and commanded 
love. Calhoun once said of him: "I don't like Clay. He is 



174 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

a bad man, an impostor, a creature of wicked schemes. I 
won't speak to him, but, by God, I love him!" His effect on 
both men and women has been ascribed to the fact that, 
mascuHne and virile though he was, he possessed feminine 
qualities that led to a sentimental feeling toward him. Men 
would follow him, knowing him to be wrong; stake their 
political fortunes on him, though they knew it would mean 
their own undoing; and women wept over his defeats and 
idolized him as a god. 

As a political leader he was an opportunist. He often 
changed his tack to meet the passing breeze, but with the 
exception of his Bank reversal nothing could force him to 
admit it. As we proceed with the story of the party battles of 
the Jackson Administrations, we shall be impressed at times 
with his capability for trickery, demagogy, misrepresentation, 
deliberate misinterpretation, and dogmatic arrogance with 
his own friends and supporters. He brooked no equals. He 
accepted no rebuke and few suggestions, and led his party 
with a high-handedness that would have wrecked a lesser 
man. 

His personal habits were not the best, and yet they were 
not of a nature that greatly shocked his generation. Adams 
thought him "only half educated" and was disgusted by the 
looseness of his public and his private morals.^ But Adams 
was not in harmony with his times. Clay was an inveterate 
gambler — but so were a large portion of the public men in 
the Washington of the Thirties. And while a heavy drinker, 
he does not appear to have often been noticeably under the 
influence, as was Webster. But these vices never interfered 
with his work or diverted him for a moment from the pur- 
suit of his ambition. 

It was a militant figure that strode down the Avenue to 
the Capitol to lead the fight, with the stride of an Indian, 
his well-shaped feet encased in shoes instead of the boots 

* Adams's Memoirs. 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 175 

generally worn at the time, and fastidiously attired as was 
his wont — a Henry Clay, in shining armor, his sword shim- 
mering. 

n 

Five days after Congress convened, the Baltimore Conven- 
tion nominated Clay for the high office he long had sought. 
It had been inevitable from the hour he rode out of Wash- 
ington after the inauguration on his way to Baltimore. 
During his retirement, his letters of 1829 and 1830 furnish 
proof of his candidacy, albeit he carefully conveyed the im- 
pression that he was a little indifferent to the nomination, and 
more than doubtful of the result of the election. ^ In a letter 
to a political follower he early predicted that if Jackson could 
unite New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania upon his can- 
didacy, opposition would be futile.^ Two months later, 
Webster assured him of the support of Massachusetts, but 
feared that a first nomination from that State would "only 
raise the cry of coalition revived."^ And three days after 
his nomination at Baltimore, Clay had written of his skep- 
ticism of success, with the encouraging comment: "Some- 
thing, however, may turn up (and that must be our encour- 
aging hope) to give a brighter aspect to our affairs." ■* Thus, 
when he entered the Senate we may be sure that it was with 
the fixed determination that something should "turn up." It 
was his belief, as we have seen, that Jackson's election de- 
pended upon his ability to carry Virginia, Pennsylvania, and 
New York. At the time he entertained no hope of diverting 
Virginia from Jackson, but he hoped to carry Pennsylvania 
or New York, or both. Upon the former he pinned his faith 
— and there the tariff was strong, and the National Bank 
had its headquarters there, with its ramifications into every 

* Colton's Life and Correspondence of Clay. 

2 Clay to Senator Johnson, Clay's Works, rv, 265. 

» Clay's Works, iv, 275. « Ihid., iv, 321. 



176 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

section of the country. His platform had been carefully 
thought out and thoroughly discussed in the correspondence 
of 1829 and 1830. It embraced internal improvements, a 
protective tariff, and the rechartering of the Bank. Thus, 
when Congress met, the Opposition candidate and his plat- 
form were before the people, and the congressional battles 
of the session were but heavy skirmishes preliminary to the 
battle for the Presidency. 

As he looked over the personnel of Congress, Clay must 
have rejoiced over his advantage. There, by his side, sat 
Webster, with all the prestige of his great name and in all the 
splendor of his genius. Presiding still over the deliberations 
of the Senate was the stern- visaged political philosopher and 
sage who had definitely broken with Jackson — Calhoun. It 
could not have taken him long to discover, in the young 
Hercules with the harshly carven features, the brilliant possi- 
bilities of John M. Clayton. And there, harboring a secret 
grudge, and suffering acutely from the wounds inflicted on 
his mentor in the chair, sat the eloquent Hayne, meditating 
revenge. In Thomas Ewing of Ohio, a robust partisan and 
able debater, he found a fighter after his own heart. And 
while they were of the State Rights persuasion, and hostile 
to the tariff and internal improvements, he could scarcely 
have failed to catch in the eyes of the erudite Tazewell and 
Tyler of Virginia something of a promise that was to be 
fulfilled. 

And against him, he saw John Forsyth and Benton, men of 
character and power, supported by Felix Grundy and Hugh 
White, "Ike" Hill and Mahlon Dickerson of New Jersey. 

His was manifestly the advantage in the Senate. 

But in the House his advantage was much greater, for 
among the members of the Opposition was the most brilliant 
array of great orators ever assembled in a single Congress. 
John Quincy Adams had reentered public life as a Represent- 
ative from Quincy — as full of fire and pepper as ever in his 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 177 

youth; Edward Everett, the most scholarly and polished 
orator of his generation; Rufus Choate, the greatest forensic 
orator the Republic has produced; Richard Henry Wilde, 
who combined the qualities of a graceful poet, a vigorous 
debater and eloquent orator, and a sound scholar; Tom 
Corwin, the wit and the slashing master of polemics; and 
greater perhaps than all, as a congressional orator, the fiery 
and indomitable George McDuffie of South Carolina. 

And against this combination the best the Administration 
could do was to put forth the commonplace plodder James K. 
Polk, assisted by Churchill C. Cambreleng of New York. 

If Jackson had the advantage of position. Clay had all the 
prestige of genius on his side. Thus the two parties faced 
each other for the battle. 

in 

A LESS provocative Message than that with which Jackson 
opened the Congress could hardly have been penned. It was 
conciliatory and in good taste. But Clay's voice was for war. 
It was his determination that something should "turn up," 
if he had to turn it up, for the purposes of the election, and 
he had instilled his spirit into his followers. Instantly the 
gage of battle was thrown down in the consideration of the 
nomination of Van Buren as Minister to England. A pettier 
piece of party politics is scarcely found in the history of the 
Senate. Among all the Opposition Senators, there were prob- 
ably none who doubted his capacity or questioned his in- 
tegrity. With the Calhoun faction it was personal spite; 
with Clay, Webster, and Clayton it was partisan spleen. Six 
months before, Van Buren had ridden out of Washington 
with Jackson by his side, and had sailed for England. In 
London he was at once received into the most brilliant soci- 
ety. He became an intimate of the Duke of Wellington, and 
Talleyrand, Ambassador from France, cultivated him, while 
Rogers, the poet, entertained him frequently at his famous 



178 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

breakfasts. He had been charged with an important mission 
— nothing less than the negotiation of an agreement that 
would prevent the recurrence of the causes of estrangement 
between the two peoples growing out of the occurrences in- 
cidental to England's participation in European wars.^ Wel- 
comed to the most exclusive drawing-rooms, cultivated by 
the most powerful of English statesmen, with the prestige in 
London of having adjusted, while in the State Department, 
the long-standing differences relative to the West Indian 
trade, he was in position to achieve triumphs for his country 
when his nomination was sent to the Senate. 

And there, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun eagerly awaited 
its coming. They had been busily engaged for weeks in pre- 
paring the attack. Each drew all his particular friends into 
the conspiracy, many of them entering reluctantly rather 
than incur their displeasure. The charges against Van Buren 
were transparently political. The Calhoun faction were pre- 
pared to contend that he had engineered the quarrel of the 
President and the Vice-President and had disrupted the 
Cabinet. Clay's special point was to be that he had intro- 
duced the policy of proscription, destined to destroy Ameri- 
can institutions, and he was to join with Webster in viciously 
assailing him for his instructions to our Minister to England 
in the negotiations on the West Indian trade. 

The latter reason for refusing to confirm the nomination 
of Van Buren was the only one that rose to the dignity of 
a pretense. For some time the United States had been nego- 
tiating with London for the opening of trade in American 
vessels between this country and the British possessions, 
but without success. During the preceding Administration, 
while Clay was Secretary of State, extravagant claims were 
advanced by the American Government, and, by angering 
England, had only served to make a settlement more remote. 
When Van Buren became Secretary of State, and McLane 

^ Jackson refers to his instructions in his Message of December, 1831. 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 179 

was sent to London, he was charged with the duty of reopen- 
ing negotiations, and was given certain instructions for his 
guidance. Among these was the abandonment of the un- 
tenable claims of Clay, and the concession of the British 
point of view upon them. This was denounced as a weakness 
and a surrender, and as an intentional reflection upon the 
previous Administration for party purposes. As a matter of 
record, the instructions furnished McLane by Van Buren 
were predicated upon the report submitted to Clay, after 
the ^failure of the preceding negotiations, by Albert Gallatin, 
the Minister to England under Adams. ^ It consequently 
follows that when Clay, thoroughly familiar with his own 
Minister's report to him, and with the fact that Van Buren 
had merely followed it in his preparation of the instructions, 
vehemently denounced the latter for deliberately and mali- 
ciously reflecting upon the previous Administration, he was 
tricking the Senate and the country. He, at least, knew 
better. And the mere fact that McLane was further in- 
structed to stress the fact that the preceding Administration 
had been repudiated by the people at the polls, and the new 
regime should not be held accountable for the mistakes of the 
old, while in doubtful taste, was scarcely an offense so hei- 
nous as to justify the proposed humiliation of Van Buren. '^ 
The other charges had less substance. It has never been con- 
vincingly shown that Van Buren had any part in engineering 
the quarrel between Jackson and Calhoun, and years after 
retiring from the Presidency, Jackson solemnly exonerated 
him from any complicity. ^ Equally unproved, and unprov- 
able, was the claim that he had precipitated the Cabinet 
crisis, and the charge that he had introduced the policy of 
proscription might well have emanated from some one other 
than Clay. 

^ Benton, by quoting the instructions and Gallatin's report, shows the dishonesty 
of the simulated indignation. {Thirty Years' View, i, 216-17.) 

^ Rufus King had furnished a precedent when he described the John Adams Ad- 
ministration to the British. (King's Works.) ' Benton's Thirty Years' Vieic, i, 217. 



L 



180 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

The clear intent of the conspiracy was to destroy Van 
Buren and his prospects for the Presidency. 

When the nomination reached the Senate, nothing was 
done for five weeks. Meanwhile the leaders of the conspir- 
acy were carefully preparing their speeches for publication 
and wide distribution. On the submission of the report, the 
venom behind the remarkable procrastination was revealed 
in a resolution, entrusted to one of the lesser lights,^ to 
recommit the nomination with instructions to investigate 
the disruption of the Cabinet and whether Van Buren had 
"participated in any practices disreputable to the national 
character." This, offered as a weak contribution to the at- 
tempt to blacken Van Buren's reputation, having served its 
purpose, was withdrawn without action. Then the orators 
began. One after another, with a cheap simulation of sorrow- 
ful regret over the necessity of injuring an amiable man, 
poured forth his protest against the nomination. Clay, of 
course, made a slashing onslaught. Webster confined himself 
to attacking the victim because of his instructions to Mc- 
Lane. Clayton and Ewing, Hayne and seven others recited 
their elaborately prepared partisan harangues under the ap- 
proving eye of Calhoun in the chair. 

The principal reply, and only four were made, was that of 
Senator John Forsyth, the accomplished floor leader of the 
Administration, and one of the most eloquent and resource- 
ful of men. He vigorously protested against a partisan cru- 
cifixion, and sarcastically commended the fine public spirit 
of Senators who could voluntarily bring such distress upon 
themselves to serve the public good. This fling went home to 
many. Hayne, in later years, admitted that he had spoken 
and voted against his judgment at the behest of party, 2 and 
John Tyler, who was incapable of a pose, voted for the con- 
firmation, "not that I liked the man overmuch," but be- 
cause he could find no principle to justify his rejection, and 

1 Senator Holmes of Maine. ' Jervey's Robert Y. Hayne. 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 181 

did not care to join "the notoriously factious opposition . . . 
who oppose everything favored by the Administration." ^ 
Indeed, the cooler and wiser heads among the enemies of the 
Administration considered the attack a serious political 
blunder. Adams, on learning of the plan, warned that "to 
reject the nomination would bring him [Van Buren] back 
with increased power to do mischief here." ^ And Thurlow 
Weed, of the "Albany Journal," uncannily wise and pro- 
; phetic, sounded a solemn warning through his editorial col- 
umns that such persecution of Van Buren "would change 
the complexion of his prospects from despair to hope." 
The plan persisted in, and "he would return home as a perse- 
cuted man, and throw himself upon the sympathy of the party, 
be nominated for Vice-President, and huzzahed into office 
at the heels of General Jackson." ^ 

This was the view of Kendall and Blair, and of Benton, 
who refused to participate in the Senate debate. The latter 
felt that, though "rejection was a bitter medicine, there was 
health at the bottom of the draught." He alone among the 
senatorial friends of the rejected Minister appears to have 
had the prescience to appreciate the ultimate advantage. 
To one Senator, rejoicing over the rejection, he turned with 
triumphant mien: "You have broken a Minister and made 
T } a Vice-President." But the enemies of the Administration 
and of the victim were jubilant. "It will kill him, sir, kill 
him dead; he will never kick, sir, never kick," exclaimed 
Calhoun in the presence of "Old Bullion." ^ And there was 
an immediate reaction. Instead of killing, it made Van 
Buren. He instantly became a party martyr, and idol. 

On the evening of the day the news of his rejection reached 
London, Van Buren appeared at a party at Talleyrand's, 
smiling, suave, undisturbed, as though he had scored a tri- 

* Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 427, 

* Adams's Memoirs, Dec. 22, 1831. 
» Weed's Autobiography, S75. * Benton's Thirtjj Years' View. i. 219. 



182 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

umph. It was probably on that day that he heard from 
Benton, urging that he hold himself free for the Vice-Presi '■ 
deney. 

The speeches of Clay, Webster, Hayne, and Clayton were | 
published, the veil of secrecy having been lifted from the :! 
executive session for this party purpose, and the effect was •' 
wholly different from that expected. It had been the part of 1; 
Kendall and Blair to see to that. While the Senators were I 
talking, they had been busy with their pens, and when the J 
action was taken the Democratic press furiously denounced ii 
the rejection, the rank and file of the party rose en masse to ! 
proclaim the victim a martyr, mass meetings were called in | 
New York, Philadelphia, and Albany to arraign the Senate, ; 
and the Democratic members of the New York Legislature i 
sent the President a letter of condolence. The Legislature ^ 
of New Jersey declared that after its favorite son, Senator ' 
Dickerson, its choice for Vice-President would be the martyr. | 
And Isaac Hill took the stump in New Hampshire to de- 1 
nounce Webster as disloyal to friendship and as a sniveling ' 
hypocrite.^ ' 

But the success of the conspiracy acted upon Clay like the ; 
taste of blood on a tiger, and with an insinuative reference to 1 
Livingston's indebtedness to the Government, which he knew > 
had been discharged to the penny, he would have applied the 
political proscription of the Whigs to the philosopher in the ! 
State Department but for the indignant protest of Dallas. | 
Thus the character of the fight to be waged against the Ad- 
ministration was clearly revealed within a month after Clay's ' 
return to public life. i 

IV J 

The first month, too, witnessed an assault on the most' 
vulnerable point of the Administration lines, and an open 
invitation to Calhoun and the Nullifiers to join their political 

1 Bradley's Life of Hill. 



I CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 183 

, fortunes with the party of Clay. Both the attack and the 

1 invitation came from John M. Clayton, who was almost to 

rival Clay in the leadership of the Whigs, and to surpass him 

in some of the qualities of leadership. When he entered the 

, Senate practically unknown, he was the youngest member of 

, that body, but there was enough in his physical appearance 

• and bearing to set him out in any group as one destined 

, to command. Over six feet in height, his figure well filled 

out; of clear complexion, with large gray eyes of intellectual 

I power, and an enormous, superbly shaped head, he looked 

I both the physical and mental giant. It only required the per- 

i sonal contact to attract men to him as steel shavings are 

attracted to the magnet. His manner was easy and grace- 

; ful, his disposition kindly and benevolent, his wit keen, his 

, conversational powers far beyond the average. With a re- 

. markable memory and an unusual gift for analysis, he en- 

i tered the Senate well equipped in a thorough knowledge of 

literature and history. He had great talents and just fell 

, short of genius. As an orator, he was logical, forceful, at 

times dramatic and eloquent. Hating the Jacksonians, he 

\ surveyed the field for an opportunity to attack, and he found 

it in the Post-Office Department. 

One of Jackson's most unfortunate appointments had been 
that of Barry as Postmaster-General. A genial and likable 
politician, a loyal friend, an ardent champion of the Presi- 
dent, and, personally, a man of undoubted integrity, he was 
pitifully lacking in business ability, in a capacity for organi- 
zation, and was all too credulous of his subordinates. Within 
two years after Jackson's inauguration, the politicians knew 
that his department offered a rich field for investigation. 
Knowing this, Clayton introduced his celebrated resolution 
, inquiring into its abuses. That the Administration circles 
were not at all satisfied that nothing could be uncovered is 
[evident in the excitement the resolution caused, and every 
effort was made by Administration Senators to block it. 



184 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

In his initial speech in support of his resolution, Clayton i, 
sounded the keynote of the Whig campaign against the pro- ; 
scriptive policies of Jackson, but more significant still was ;( 
his appeal, the. first openly made, to Calhoun, to join with il 
the followers of Clay in a concerted assault upon the Ad- j 
ministration. i 

While the young Senator from Delaware was speaking, , 
Calhoun sat in the chair of the presiding officer. Turning in j 
his direction, Clayton made the first bold bid for his support j 
of the party Opposition. j 

"But it will be seen," he said, "whether there be not one i 
man in this nation to breast its [Administration's] terrors | 
whenever the President hurls his thunders. There are hawks > 
abroad, sir. Rumor alleges that that plundering falcon has i 
recently swooped upon a full-fledged eagle that never yet 
flinched from a contest, and, as might be naturally expected, ' 
all await the result with intense interest. It is given out that I 
the intended victim of proscription now is one distinguished far ! 
above all in office for the vigor and splendor of his intellect. ' 
. . . But if that integrity and fairness which have heretofore ' 
characterized him through life do not desert him in this j 
hour of greatest peril, we may yet live to see one, who has i 
been marked out as a victim, escape unscathed even by that ] 
power which has thus far prostrated alike the barriers of l| 
public law and the sanctity of private reputation." | 

The appeal was entirely unnecessary, if not intended merely '■ 
as a public tribute to a newly acquired ally, for Calhoun and • 
his friends were already hostile to the Administration. It is 
historically interesting only in that it shows the cleverness ' 
of the National Republicans, soon to adopt the name of I 
Whigs, in undertaking to coalesce with all elements of the 
Opposition, no matter how divergent, or even inconsistent, 
the causes leading to the disaffection. ' 

Thus, within a few weeks after the assumption of the 
leadership by Clay, we find Jackson's favorite humiliated 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 185 

by the rejection of his nomination; another wantonly in- 
sulted by the questioning of his personal integrity; a move- 
ment launched to blacken the Administration through an 
investigation of its most vulnerable department; and a plan 
conceived for the consummation of an unholy alliance of 
incongruous elements. 

V 

Meanwhile Clay, devoted to the protective tariff policy, 
anxious to save it from crucifixion by consent, and with a 
political eye on the political effect of his championship in 
Pennsylvania, without which he thought Jackson's reelection 
impossible, had been busy formulating a new tariff which 
was to create more party clashes. 

Within a month after Congress met, he called a meeting 
of the friends of the protective tariff to determine plans for 
party action. The then existing "tariff of abominations" ^ 
was doomed by public opinion. Two months before he 
wrote a friend acknowledging a revision inevitable, and an- 
nouncing plans for one not compromising to the protective 
principle. 2 The conference called by Clay met at the home 
of Edward Everett, Representative from Boston, with the 
presidential nominee himself presiding. He summoned his 
friends, not to consult, but to take orders. He disclosed 
his plan — a repeal of all duties on tea, coffee, spices, indigo, 
I and similar articles, and thereby reduce the revenue as much 
I as seven millions that year without interfering with the pre- 
vailing duties that had been imposed for protective purposes. 
Jackson intended to destroy the protective system through 
! the accumulation of revenue. It was the duty of its friends to 
save it through the reductions proposed. 
1 If we may accept Adams as a faithful reporter. Clay's 
manner was "exceedingly peremptory and dogmatical." 

^ So described by Senator Smith of Maryland. 
* Clay to Brooke, Clay's Worku, iv, 314. 



186 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Various questions, indicative of doubt, were asked. Everett, 
mindful of the ominous protest of the South, thought the 
plan might be interpreted as "setting the South at defiance" 
Adams, who had a mind of his own, reported that the Com- 
mittee on Manufactures in the House, of which he was 
chairman, was "already committed upon the principle that 
the reduction of the duties should be prospective, and not 
to commence until after the extinguishment of the public i 
debt"; and he suggested that the Clay plan would be, not ! 
only "a defiance of the South, but of the President and the ' 
Administration." The spirit of Clay is well disclosed in his i 
none too gracious reply that "to preserve, maintain, and , 
strengthen the American System, he would defy the South, j 
the President, and the Devil; that if the Committee on Man- : 
ufactures had committed themselves . . . they had given a 
very foolish and improvident pledge; and that there was no | 
necessity for the payment of the debt by the 4th of March, | 
1833." \ 

This led to some debate between the former President 
and his premier, with Adams insisting that Jackson's desire 
to extinguish the debt should be "indulged and not op- j 
posed," and that the President's idea "would take greatly 
with the people." This view piqued and mortified Clay, : 
who had found all the party leaders in the conference be- i 
comingly obsequious with the exception of Adams. That 
Adams was equally disgusted we may gather from his de- 
scription of Clay's manner as "super-presidential," and from ; 
the following entry in his journal: "Clay's motives are ob- ; 
vious. He sees, that next November, at the choice of presi- j 
dential electors, the great and irresistible electioneering cry i 
will be the extinguishment of the public debt. By instant 
repeal of the duties he wants to withdraw seven or eight ; 
millions from the Treasury and make it impossible to ex- \ 
tinguish it by the 3rd of March, 1833. It is an electioneering i 
movement, and this was the secret of these movements, as 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 187 

well as of the desperate efforts to take the whole business of 
the reduction of the tariff into his own hands." ^ The Demo- 
cratic opinion that Clay was partly actuated by a petty par- 
tisan desire to deprive the Administration of the credit for 
wiping out the national debt, corroborated as it is by Adams, 
is plausible enough. At the same time, it was manifestly 
Clay's purpose to rally the protected industries to his stand- 
ard in the presidential campaign. 

Meanwhile the lobbyists of the protected interests, flock- 
ing to the capital, crowded the rotunda every morning, mix- 
ing with the statesmen. Here, at the time, was the Re- 
public in miniature — lobbyists, statesmen, correspondents, 
and plebeians mingling in a common arena, with the visiting 
tourists ranged about to view the celebrities in their mo- 
ments of conversational unbending. ^ Clay made the presen- 
tation of his plan the opportunity for his first political 
; speech of his campaign. The Senate was crowded to hear 
him. It was not enough that he should acknowledge the 
j approach of the extinguishment of the public debt, and base 
■ his argument for the reduction of duties upon that fact. The 
possibility of the passing of the debt during the Administra- 
tion of Jackson was clearly annoying, and he attempted, 
I laboriously, and at considerable length, to deprive it of any 
: credit. The plan of the Administration to reduce no duties 
on unprotected articles previous to March, 1833, and to 
make a gradual and prospective reduction on protected 
I articles, he denounced as a scheme to "destroy the protect- 
1 ing system by a slow but certain poison." There was nothing 
I remarkable in his first speech except its affectation of mod- 
esty, and his reference to old age and declining power. 

But he was soon to find the incentive for his greatest 
\ speech upon the tariff. Hayne attacked the protective sys- 
I tern with all the vigor and venom of a Nulhficationist in the 
' making; and Clay replied in the brilliant fighting protec- 

* Adams's Memoirs, Dec. 22, 1831. * Perley's Reminiscences, i, 46. 



188 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

tionist speech which ranks as one of the masterful efforts of 
his life, and was to be used as a textbook for the advocates of 
the system for fifty years. Read even to-day, after the lapse : 
of almost a century, it has a familiar sound, and transmits > 
its pulsations from the printed page as though the reader felt ,1 
the heartbeat of the orator. | 

Among the Southerners in the Senate, this speech created ! 
the greatest excitement and the gravest forebodings, with j 
John Tyler assailing both the principle of protection and the 
method of framing bills under the principle. But the most 
significant note struck by Tyler was the warning that the I 
continuance of the protective policy would inevitably lead to | 
the disruption of the Union. The speeches of both Clay and l| 
Tyler were sent broadcast over the country. That of the 
former delighted protectionists and impressed all. Harrison 1 
Gray Otis wrote enthusiastically from Boston, but both 
James Madison and James Barbour gently questioned the \ 
taste of the partisan attack on Albert Gallatin as a "loi-' 
eigner." * Highly complimentary letters were received by ' 
Tyler from John Marshall and James Madison, both of whom 
favored the reduction of the tariff. ^ | 

And throughout it all. Clay found himself unable to ma- j 
neuver Jackson or his friends into a position of opposition to ' 
the system. Amos Kendall and Blair had their hopes tied 
to another issue. They had no thought of sacrificing the elec- 
toral vote of the Keystone State. The leaders of the Senate | 
opposition to the tariff were Hayne and Tyler, neither of 
whom was longer considered as in the confidence of the Pres- ' 
ident. Clay's speech, widely distributed in Pennsylvania,' 
Ohio, and New York, proved him a champion of the system, ' 
but nothing occurred in the Senate to prove Jackson an en- 
emy. This was the situation when the real battle was trans- 
ferred to the House of Representatives. 

1 Clay's Works, iv. 328-29. 

* Letters and Times of the Tylers, l, 438. 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 189 

VI 

Through some trickery or blunder, that portion of the 
Presidential Message relating to "relieving the people from 
unnecessary taxation after the extinguishment of the public 
debt," was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means 
a majority of whose members were hostile to the protective 
system; and to the Committee on Manufactures was referred 
that part concerning "manufactures and the modification of 
the tariff" — a dual reference of the same subject to rival 
committees. At the head of the Committee on Manufactures 
I was John Quincy Adams — certainly not a spokesman of the 
lAdministration ; and the chairman of the Committee on 
.Ways and Means was George McDuffie of South Carolina, 
a protege of Calhoun, and now an implacable foe of Jackson. 
I In feverish haste McDuffie, representing the extreme free- 
trade school, began the preparation of his report and the 
formulation of his bill to get in before the more deliberate 
Adams. He proceeded independently of the forthcoming 
report and tentative Administration measure from Secretary 
McLane, such was his precipitation. Adams, more consid- 
erate, awaited the report, in the meanwhile making many 
morning calls upon the Secretary. ^ Strangely enough, the 
'ormer President had favorably impressed many Southerners 
3y his admission that existing rates were unfair to the South. 
His position, as on a more notable occasion later, was unique. 
Even Jackson was actively making overtures to him. The 
jiver-convenient Colonel Johnson of Tecumseh fame, ap- 
/[jroaching the old Puritan with a suggestion of a reconcilia- 
tion, tactfully hinted that he thought the President should 
nake the first move. The cautious Adams, not at all averse, 
iCminded the emissary that Jackson had broken, not he; to 
vhich Johnson replied that the General had been poisoned 
)y "scoundrel office-seekers" when he first reached the capi- 

^ Adams in bis Memoirs makes numerous references to these calls. 



190 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

tal. Would Adams dine at the White House, if invited? The 
wily old man parried with the reminder that such would only 
be the courtesy customarily accorded all members. But 
would Adams dine at the White House with a small and I 
select company? He would not — and on similar grounds. , 
At the end of his rope, the anxious Johnson asked Adams for : 
a suggestion, only to receive the reply that it was a matter 
for Jackson to decide. ^ The next day Adams received a note ; 
from Johnson to the effect that Jackson had "expressed I, 
great satisfaction" over the conversation and sent his "per- 
sonal regards and friendship," together with the assurance , 
that he was "anxious to have social and friendly intercourse ; 
restored." Thinking it over, the suspicious Adams could 
not but meditate upon the attacks from Clay's friends if he 
should cross the threshold of the White House — and there 
the matter appears to have rested finally.^ 1 

There has never been another character in American his- , 
tory quite like Adams. His real portrait, self-painted, peers , 
at the world from between the covers of his monumental 
diary, in which he communed with himself unreservedly, j 
and expressed his opinion of men and their motives with , 
brutal frankness. He was a professional statesman of a high 
order. Entering upon diplomatic duties in his youth, hd 
knew the cross-currents of world politics at an age when , 
most Americans are laboriously projecting themselves into 
the politics of their immediate neighborhood. From his earli- , 
est years he had been in contact with great minds, and with 
men of power and broad vision. A thorough scholar, hc' 
was, at the same time, a man of the world. Conscious of his 
ability and his advantages, cold and reserved, and dignified 
to the point of frigidity, it is not difficult to understand his 
supercilious attitude toward men less favored, and yet placed 
in lofty station. Inspired by the highest ideals of public 
service, holding himself under such rigid discipline as to have 

» Adams's Memoirs, March 2, 1832. * Ibid.. March 3. 1832. 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 191 

made himself immune to the small vices, placing duty above 
friendship, scarcely ever yielding his dignity to mirth, and on 
those rare occasions smiling sardonically, he stood upon an 
isolated peak — of humanity, and yet separated from it.^ No 
one living the monastic life could have lived more by rule, 
or have scourged himself more faithfully to his tasks. 

Of friendships, he knew little from experience. Naturally 
of a suspicious disposition, he suspected treachery where it 
was not. Holding to no ordinary standard of perfection, he 
could not forgive the imperfections of his fellows. Even 
the transcendent genius of Clay could not hide from him the 
great man's lack of education. One searches the pages of his 
diary in eager quest of some complimentary references — 
there are scarcely any. That he bitterly realized his isolation 
is clearly disclosed. "I am a man of reserve," he wrote, 
"cold, austere and forbidding manners. My political adver- 
saries say a gloomy misanthrope; my personal enemies, an 
unsocial savage. With a knowledge of the actual defects of 
my character, I have not had the pliability to reform it." 
That such a man, entertaining such an opinion of his own 
merits and the failings of his contemporaries, should have 
consented to serve in the lower House of Congress, after hav- 
ing served in the Presidency, can only mean that he loved his 
country and sought the opportunity for service. That it was 
'not to punish his enemies, we shall find on more than one 
occasion when he took his stand with the Administration of 
the man who displaced him. Not least among the merits 
'^f Adams was his capacity to work in serious cooperation 
isvith McLane in the moulding of the tariff of 1832. 
' Quite a diflFerent type, and in some respects a greater genius, 
|vas George McDuflBe. His career was a mingling of romance 
lind tragedy. A child of poverty, the protege of a Calhoun,^ 

^ March, in his Reminiscences of Congress, describes him as "cold, passionless and 
iscrutable as the Egyptian sphinx, whose fate, too, his own resembled." 
2 Brother of John C. 



192 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

he had while yet in college been regarded "as a young man 
of extraordinary talents," albeit at that time "he had not 
that passionate and eloquent declamation which he was 
afterwards to display in Congress." ^ After hearing his great 
speech on the tariff in 1827, Josiah Quincy, who heard him, j 
described him as "the most sensational orator of the time."^ ' 
In the fight against the Panama Mission, Sargent thought I: 
him "decidedly the most violent and aggressive speaker ar- r 
rayed against the Administration." ^ His passionate and 
impulsive nature frequently led to personal encounters; and 
in reaching an understanding of his irritable and sour dis- 
position, it is profitable to know that just before entering'; 
Congress he had been wounded in the spine in a duel, and 
never afterwards knew a day free from personal discomfort. 
This wound, which ultimately killed him, changed a good- 
tempered and jovial man into the irritable, morose, and 
nervous creature known to history.^ The indifference of thai 
protectionists to the interests of the South, and the intem- 
perate attacks of the abolitionists upon the Southern people, 
acted upon the diseased genius as an irritant and drove himi 
to extremes. Even so, he rejected Nullification as a remedy, 
and insisted that the sole recourse of the Southerners was 
revolution.^ Intellectually honest, morally clean, physically; 
ailing, he put such of himself as he cared for the world to see 
into his public acts. He withdrew into himself — taciturn, i 
lonely. "A spare, grim looking man, who was an admirer ofi 
Milton, and who was never known to smile or jest," as Perley 
Poore describes him.^ His health gone, his life uncertain, 
an idolized wife taken from him within a year, his leader's 



^ O'Neall's Bench and Bar of South Carolina. 

' Figures of the Past. 

3 Public Men and Events, i, 117. 

* O'Neall's Bench and Bar of South Carolina. 

5 "I know that he had no faith in Nullification." (O'Neall.) "It would seem that 
he was willing to rest the case of the State upon the bare right of revolution." (David 
F. Houston's Study of Nullification in South Carolina.) 

* Perley s Reminiscences, i, 81. 






CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 193 

aspirations wrecked, his section threatened, it is not strange 
that he poured forth on Andrew Jackson such torrents of 
eloquent vituperation. 

VII 

Standing not on ceremony, McDuffie hastened to report a 
bill, accompanied by an elaborate report in the nature of an 
indictment of the protective system, which "ought to be 
abandoned with all convenient and practical despatch, upon 
every principle of justice, patriotism and sound policy." The 
bill provided an immediate reduction of duties on all articles 
except iron, steel, salt, cotton-bagging, hemp and flax, and 
on everything made of cotton, wool, and iron, to a basis of 
twenty-five per cent ad valorem. On the excepted articles the 
reduction was to be gradual, tumbling to twenty-five per 
cent at once, to eighteen and three quarters per cent on June 
30, 1833, and to twelve and a half per cent one year later. 

With Adams still laboring on his bill, McDufiie called his 
up with a slashing speech. This prodigiously long philippic 
was historical in that it tended to force the issue of Nullifi- 
cation a little earlier than its sponsors had planned. 

In the meanwhile the Administration measure, with Mc- 
Lane's report, had been submitted, providing for the repeal 
of the existing tariff after March 3, 1833, and the reduction 
of the revenue to the financial requirements of the Govern- 
ment. This contemplated the reduction of the revenue to 
$12,000,000 a year, and the arrangement of the rates so as 
sufficiently to protect the great interests involved. 

Using the Administration measure as a basis, Adams there- 
upon prepared his bill and report. In his statement the patri- 
otic statesman, indifferent to the clamor of party, or class, 
or section, shines forth luminously. It may have been un- 
necessary to expose the protectionist's fallacy that raising 
the duties lowers the price of the domestic product; equally 
unnecessary to warn the Southerners that a persistence in 



194 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

their course would lead to appalling consequences, but he 
made these points. In presenting his bill, Adams frankly ex- 
plained that it was based on the Administration measure, 
with some changes as to details. 

With the Adams bill before it, the House made short shrift 
of the McDuffie measure. The protectionists were in de- 
spair. The Legislatures of Pennsylvania and Connecticut 
passed condemnatory resolutions, and mass meetings were 
held protesting against reductions. An unsuccessful attempt 
was made to substitute the Clay Senate plan. And yet Clay 
himself was fairly well satisfied, and on its passage in the 
House wrote that "with some alterations it will be a very 
good measure of protection." ^ At the time he wrote, how- 
ever, he was convinced that the alterations would be made 
in the Senate and accepted by the House, and upon the 
failure of these plans to materialize hangs another story of 
politics. 

The Senate lost no time making amendments, and as it 
was now July, with all anxious to adjourn, no time was 
wasted on unnecessary speeches, and the amendments, 
which were numerous, were hurried through. In a few in- 
stances, not many, the protectionists lost, but on the whole 
theirs was the victory when the bill went back to the House. 
There a few of the Senate amendments were accepted, but 
the majority were rejected and the bill was thrown into 
conference. 

And here enters one of the comedy-tragedies of politics. 
Calhoun was absent, Tazewell in the chair, when the measure 
was returned to the Senate. The motion for a conference 
carried. And then it was, in the naming of the Senate con- 
ferees, that Tazewell either made a blunder or turned a 
trick. Hayne, named as the minority member, was expected 
to act badly, but the protectionists pinned implicit faith in 
Wilkins of Pennsylvania and Dickerson of New Jersey, the 

» Clay to Brooke, Clay's Works, iv, 340. 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 195 

former a business man, manufacturer, banker from a protec- 
tionist State, the latter with a powerful protectionist con- 
stituency. Unhappily the friends of the Senate bill did not 
attach sufficient importance to the candidacy of both men 
for the Vice-Presidential nomination with Jackson — to the 
pull of personal ambition. Whatever their special motives in 
surrendering to the conferees of the House, they gave only 
a perfunctory support to the Senate amendments and capit- 
ulated. 

The amazement and indignation of Clay and his followers 
were unbounded. Clay sharply cross-examined Wilkins and 
Dickerson upon the proceedings in the conference, and then 
had to content himself by joining Webster in a warm denun- 
ciation of the surrender. There was nothing to be done, how- 
ever, but for the Senate to recede, and the bill was passed and 
promptly signed by Jackson. 

Thus the tariff battle on which Clay relied to strengthen 
him in the pre-presidential contest was practically barren 
of party significance. By no sophistry or reasoning could 
the protectionist States of Pennsylvania and New York be 
turned against Jackson, who had promptly signed the bill 
that Adams had sponsored, and which had been supported 
by such Administration Democrats as Isaac Hill, Dickerson, 
Marcy, Wilkins, Grundy, White, and Benton. 

The tariff issue was dead before the campaign was fairly 
begun. 

vm 

If Clay had failed to embarrass the Administration on the 
tariff, the keen Jacksonian politicians were to be more suc- 
cessful in embarrassing Clay on the land question. This was 
a peculiarly delicate subject for Clay to touch in the midst of 
the campaign. In the Southern and Western States more 
than 1,090,000,000 acres remained the property of the Na- 
tional Government — a vast empire. The proceeds from the 



196 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

sale of these lands had been originally dedicated to the pay- 
ment of the national debt; and now with the extinguishment 
of the debt in sight, all manner of schemes were advanced as 
to the future disposition of the lands and the proceeds. For 
a number of years Benton, with characteristic tenacity, had 
been urging his plan of graduated prices, with free grants 
to actual settlers, and he had won Jackson over to his theory 
with Edmund Burke's proposition, advanced in his speech on 
the disposition of the crown lands in England, that the prin- 
cipal revenue to be had from uncultivated tracts "springs 
from the improvement of the population of the kingdom." 
The sturdy Missourian looked with repugnance upon the 
idea of considering these uncultivated acres as sources of 
revenue, rather than as an opportunity for settlers, and he 
gradually converted the Democratic Party to his point of 
view. 

To make matters all the more embarrassing to Clay, his 
party had been placed in the position of deliberately with- 
holding this vast domain from the axe of the pioneer and the 
spade of the cultivator, in the interest of the manufacturers 
of the East. This had resulted from the unfortunate wording 
of an oflScial report of Richard Rush, a colleague of Clay's in 
the Cabinet of Adams, in which he had lamented the pref- 
erence of the American people for agricultural over manufac- 
turing pursuits. The report had been referred to Clay whose 
practiced political eye instantly saw the possibilities in the 
perversion or exaggeration of the meaning of these para- 
graphs, and he had fruitlessly urged their elimination. The 
Democrats were quick to grasp their opportunity. The pro- 
tectionists. Clay and his friends, planned that the National 
Government should, by holding on to the lands, retard their 
settlement by maintaining prices prohibitive to the settler; 
they proposed to maintain a large labor market in the indus- 
trial labor centers of the East where competition would be 
keen enough to keep down wages. For the sake of the pro- 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 197 

tected interests, they were ready to sacrifice the opportunities 
of the poor of the Eastern cities and make them the galley 
slaves of the factories; retard the development of the West, 
and immolate the national interest on the altar of greed. 
And there was just enough truth in these charges, rather 
luridly put forth, to make them exceedingly dangerous in a 
presidential year. 

The issue had been accentuated by the suggestion of Mc- 
Lane, Secretary of the Treasury, that the public lands should 
be sold to the States in which they were located, and the pro- 
ceeds apportioned among all the States in the Union. This, 
naturally enough, made an instant appeal to the States most 
intimately concerned, and six of the new Commonwealths 
hastened to petition Congress for the cession. This brought 
the subject before the Senate, and in the spring of 1832 two 
motions were submitted, one to inquire into the wisdom of 
reducing the price of the public lands, the other into the 
expediency of the McLane proposition. 

And it was at this juncture that the Jacksonians turned the 
trick on Clay and forced him into the open as an aggressive 
enemy of the wishes of the new States. With a regular Senate 
Committee on Public Lands, composed of men intimately 
acquainted with the subject, the amazing motion was made 
and carried that the matter be referred to the Committee on 
Manufactures of which Clay was chairman. The friends of 
the candidate bitterly protested against the reference; and 
Clay himself "protested," "entreated," and "implored" that 
the reference be changed to the Committee on Public Lands. 
"I felt," he said later, "that the design was to place in my 
hands a many-edged instrument which I could not touch 
without being wounded." ^ 

Unable to extricate himself from the embarrassment. Clay 
set to work, and in a short time submitted a report, accompa- 
nied by a bill, providing against the reduction of the price of 

1 Clay's Works, iv. 331. 



198 PARTY BATTLES OP THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the land, but for granting to Ohio, Indiana, IlHnois, Alabama, 
Missouri, and Mississippi twelve and a half per cent of the 
proceeds from the sale of lands within their borders, to be 
applied to the purposes of education and internal improve- 
ments. This, of course, was a frank attempt to prevent the 
resentment of the people of these States from asserting itself 
at the polls. The remainder of the proceeds was then to be 
apportioned to the remaining States, according to their popu- 
lation, to be used for the schools, internal improvements, and 
negro colonization. The act was to remain in force for five 
years, provided no war intervened, in which event all the 
proceeds were to be used in defraying the expenses of the 
conflict. In this way Clay attempted to maintain the exist- 
ing economic conditions while satisfying the new States 
whose electoral votes he sought. 

If the political intent of the reference to Clay's committee 
had been in the least open to doubt, all such was removed 
by the action of the Senate in thereupon ordering the matter 
referred to the Committee on Public Lands. Again Clay 
vehemently protested. He had not wanted to report upon 
the subject. He had protested against the reference. But the 
reference having been made, and the report submitted, he 
protested anew against the reflection upon his committee 
implied by the new reference. 

At the head of the Committee on Public Lands was Senator 
Eling of Alabama, but Clay was right in ascribing the au- 
thorship of the report, soon to be submitted, to Thomas H. 
Benton.^ This report vigorously assailed the reasoning and 
conclusions of Clay; attacked the disposition to look upon 
the public lands as useful primarily for revenue and second- 
arily for settlement, and reversed the order; and deprecated 
the suggestion of the use of the money to be distributed 

' " He [King] has availed himself of another's aid, and the hand of the Senator 
from Missouri is as visible in the composition, as if his name had been subscribed 
to the instrument." (Clay's speech of June 20, 1832.) 



CLAY LEADS THE PARTY ONSLAUGHT 199 

among the States for the colonization of the negroes as cal- 
culated to "light up the fires of the extinguished conflagra- 
tion which lately blazed on the Missouri question." It fa- 
vored the reduction of the price of land to one dollar per acre 
during the next five years; then to fifty cents, with fifteen 
per cent of the proceeds to be apportioned among the States. 
Whatever may have been the objections to the Democratic 
plan, it gave promise of an earlier redemption of the wilder- 
ness by the cultivation of man, and the more speedy enhance- 
ment of the land of the pioneers already in possession. 

Keenly appreciative of the purpose of his enemies. Clay 
delivered a long and powerful speech, his second campaign 
speech in the Senate, plausibly defending his position, ex- 
plaining Rush's meaning, and attempting to divert the greed 
of the new States into a different channel. That he made a 
profound impression may be properly assumed from the fact 
that the bill passed the Senate, although it was checked by a 
hostile House. 

Thus his friends flattered themselves that he had scored a 
triumph and outwitted his foes. The old school politicians 
still gauged public opinion by the roll-calls of the Congress. 
The new school, which came in with Jackson, were least of 
all concerned with the views of the politicians at the capital. 
They were interesting themselves with the plain voters, and 
were devising means for reaching these in the campaign to 
follow. They had sensed the feelings and the prejudices and 
suspicions of the pioneers of the new States. They were an 
agricultural people and easily inflamed by the suggestion 
that their interests were to be subordinated or sacrificed to 
the interests of the Eastern industrial centers. They wanted 
the speedy felling of the forests, the cultivation of the fields, 
the building of homes and schools and churches, and the Ben- 
ton plan of reduced prices and preemption for actual settlers 
appealed to them as in harmony with their desires. 

And thus, while the friends of Clay were rejoicing in what 



200 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

they conceived to be the unanswerable logic of the Clay re- 
port, the politicians of the Kitchen Cabinet, Kendall and 
Blair, were rejoicing in having, in documentary form, the 
proof that Clay and the protectionists were hostile to the 
wishes of the new States. Amos Kendall knew that "free 
trade and free lands" was a shibboleth that these pioneers 
could understand. And while Clay, Webster, and Clayton 
were rejoicing over the passage of the bill in the Senate, Ken- 
dall and Blair were joyously arranging to spread the story of 
that triumph to the voters of the new States. After all, they 
had succeeded in their purpose. They had a Clay and a 
Jackson report to hold side by side, and the event disclosed 
that the politicians of the Kitchen Cabinet were wiser than 
the politicians of the Senate house. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 

I 

During the early days of the Jackson regime, a remarkable 
and little remembered figure passed furtively in and out of 
the closet of the President, playing a quiet, but none the less 
effective, part in the moulding of policies. This was none 
other than James A. Hamilton, son of the creator of the Na- 
tional Bank. Then a trusted brave of the tribe of Tammany, 
the reflector of Van Buren, the supporter of Jackson, he had 
fought the Federalist machine of New York, been made acting 
Secretary of State by the President pending the arrival 
of Van Buren, and later been appointed District Attorney of 
New York. For several years on the eve of portentous events 
he glided into the capital. That the son of Alexander Hamil- 
ton should have had such intimate relations with the Presi- 
dent who denounced what he thought to be the persecution 
of Aaron Burr, is one of the mysteries of history. 

When the first Jackson Message was under consideration, 
Hamilton, in response to the requests of Van Buren, Lewis, 
and others, reached Washington to confer with Jackson. He 
hastened to Van Buren, who was no doubt prolific of sugges- 
tions; thence to the White House to be cordially received. 
The following morning he breakfasted with the President, 
who urged him to remain at the White House while revising 
the Message. In going over the draft, which he found the 
"work of different hands," he was surprised to find that "the 
Bank of the United States was attacked at great length in a 
loose, newspaper slashing style." He found much to do. It 
was four o'clock in the morning when Jackson, hearing some 



202 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

one tinkering with the fire in the grate, entered Hamilton's 
room in his nightgown. 

"My dear Colonel, why are you up so late?" he asked. 

"I am at my work which I intend to finish before I sleep," 
Hamilton replied. 

At which the mulatto who slept on a rug in Jackson's 
room was sent in to keep Hamilton's fire going. At eight in 
the morning the latter appeared in the President's room to 
report the completion of his task. 

"What did you say about the Bank?" Jackson asked 
instantly. 

"Very little." 

And the son of Alexander Hamilton read the brief para- 
graph challenging the constitutionality and the expediency 
of the Bank his father had created, and declaring that it had 
"failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and sound 
currency." 

"Do you think that is all I ought to say?" asked Jackson. 

"I think you ought to say nothing about the Bank at pres- 
ent," was the response. 

"Oh, but, my friend, I am pledged against the Bank, but 
if you think that is enough, so let it be." * 

Some students of the period are prone to ascribe Jackson's 
hostility to the Bank to a personal grievance of Isaac Hill. 
The flimsy assumption that the President's Bank policy was 
born of the quarrel of the Concord editor with Biddle, be- 
cause of the retention in the presidency of the Portsmouth 
branch of Jeremiah Mason, is unimpressive. Equally absurd 
to deny that the Mason incident played no part. According 
to some, Hill, in his attempt to force the removal of Mason, 
was wholly actuated by a desire to get political control of the 
institution; to others, to the inability of the editor-politician 
to get a loan. The truth is that the hostility to Mason was 
not confined to politicians, but was shared by many of the 

* Hamilton's Reminiscences, 150. 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 203 

merchants of New Hampshire. This hostility was due to 
Mason's austere action, on discovering that some bad loans 
had been made on speculative ventures, in exacting hard 
terms of the local merchants. The petition sent to Biddle by 
Hill contained the names of sixty members of the legislature, 
and most of the business men of Portsmouth, of both parties.^ 
The president of the Portsmouth branch was a great lawyer, 
a statesman of reputation, an orator of power, and a par- 
tisan as bitter and intolerant as ever breathed the proscrip- 
tive air of New Hampshire. In the correspondence which 
followed between Secretary Ingham, who is said to have had 
a personal grievance,^ and Nicholas Biddle, the president of 
the Bank, who has been variously described according to the 
bias of the writer, was unquestionably flippant and intolerant 
of suggestions from the Administration. While his position 
in the Mason incident can be justified, he was unnecessarily 
arrogant and tactless; but quickly realizing his mistake, he 
thereafter changed his tone, and throughout the summer and 
autumn of 1829 made every effort to conciliate the President. 
His letters of this period to the heads of the various branches 
insisting that the Bank be kept out of politics smack of sin- 
cerity.^ But the harm had been done, and there is every 
reason to conclude that Amos Kendall was deeply concerned 
in the President's decision to attack the Bank in his first 
Message. Certain it is that a letter from Kendall to Noah in 
November led the "New York Courier and Enquirer" to 
launch its editorial campaign against the institution. This 
letter, announcing the presidential decision to attack in his 
first Message, and presenting an argument in support of the 
I position he was to assume, was sent by Noah to the newspaper, 

r 

^ Hill's explanatory speech in the Senate, March 3, 1834, differs radically from the 
generally accepted story, and has the ring of truth. 
j 2 Schouler, iv, 44. 

I ' In Reginald C McGrane's Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, see Biddle to John 
: Harper, 67; to John Nichol, 72; to Robert Lenox, 72; to A. Dickens, 77; to Major 
! Lewis, 80; to Samuel Jaudon, 82. 



204 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

and "a portion of Amos Kendall's letter, with a head and 
tail put to it . . . was published as an editorial the next morn- 
ing"; and this "was the first savage attack on the United 
States Bank" in the columns of that paper. ^ And almost 
immediately afterwards James Gordon Bennett, writing for 
the "Courier and Enquirer," began a series of powerful ar- 
ticles in support of the policy of that journal.^ 

Indeed, if an explanation for Jackson's position must be 
sought in the Kjtchen Cabinet, it would be more profitable 
to seek it in the principles of Amos Kendall, who had written 
against the Bank long before he had met the President, and 
while still on friendly terms with Clay. Others of Jackson's 
intimates were equally hostile. The views of Benton had 
been urged for years; and Hugh L. White, Senator from Ten- 
nessee, one of his confidential advisers in the early days of 
his Administration, had long distrusted the institution as 
tending to extravagant speculation, and as threatening the 
liberties of the people through its increasing influence in elec- 
tions.^ But Jackson himself needed no propagandists at his 
elbow. He had been prejudiced against the Bank for twenty 
years by Clay's slashing speech against it when the first 
Bank applied for a recharter.^ 

In his Message of December, 1830, Jackson dismissed the 
Bank in a paragraph, clearly indicative of unfriendliness; 
and in December, 1831, he scarcely mentioned it at all, ex- 
cept to call attention to his previous statements. But from 
the moment the first Message was read, Biddle's complacency 
was disturbed. His correspondence during the next two years 
shows him active and alert in attempts to conciliate his foe 
in the White House. Less than a week after one son of Alex- 
ander Hamilton had penned the first warning of war, Biddle 
was reading a letter from Alexander Hamilton, Jr., a brother, 
assuring him that the die was cast, the war inevitable, and 

■^ ^ Pray, Memmrs of James Gordon Bennett, i, 148. ' Ibid. 

— 8 Memoir of Hugh Luwson White, 80. * Parton, li, 654. 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 205 

warning him against the presidential aspirations of Van 
Buren, to whose political fortunes his brother was then 
attached.^ Biddle replied that the Bank views of the Mes- 
sage were Jackson's, honestly held, and that for the time the 
Bank's policy would be one of "abstinence and self-defense." ^ 
"The expressions of the Message were the President's own/* 
he wrote the head of the Washington branch immediately 
afterward, "... and inserted in opposition to the wishes, if 
not the advice of all his habitual counsellors. It is not, there- 
fore, a cabinet measure, nor a party measure, but a personal 
measure." ^ And had he not ample encouragement in the 
letters of Major Lewis, a household guest of Jackson's, rec- 
ommending the appointment of certain men to the director- 
ship of the branch in Nashville.^ ^ Nevertheless, he was not 
at all positive that the recharter might not be made a party 
measure. Especially conceraed with Van Buren's attitude, 
he was being constantly warned against him, but his advices 
were contradictory. Within a month he was reassured by 
one correspondent ^ and alarmed by Clay, who wrote him 
from Ashland that, while in Richmond, Van Buren had en- 
tered into a conspiracy with politicians to destroy the Bank." 
And to add to the mystic maze of contradictions. Major 
Lewis wrote, in a "confidential" note, that the report that 
Jackson would veto a bill rechartering the Bank "must be 
some mistake because the report was at variance with what I 
had heard him say upon the subject." ^ Still another corre- 
spondent ^ informed him that Van Buren had told him that 
" he disapproved of that part of the message and was not 
hostile to the Bank." 

About this time Jackson journeyed to the Hermitage, and 

1 * Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 88. ^ Ibid., 91. 

I ' Biddle to Samuel Smith, ibid., 94. * Ibid., 97. 

I * Charles Augustus Davis, ibid.f 101. 

Clay to Biddle, ibid., 106. 

' Lewis to Biddle, ibid., 103. 

* Roswell L. Colt, ibid., 104. 



206 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Biddle asked a leading citizen of Nashville to "feel him out.'* 
The banker's correspondent entertained the President at his 
home, and after a confidential chat felt justified in advising 
Biddle that he was "well convinced that he will not interfere 
with Congress on the subject of the renewing of the charter." ^ 
By this time, however, Biddle had convinced himself that 
political expediency would determine the President's atti- 
tude, and in a letter to one of Jackson's personal friends he 
pointed out the disastrous political results to the Adminis- 
tration if the impression gained ground that it was "un- 
friendly to sound currency." He even graciously indicated 
the line the next Message might take to save the Adminis- 
tration from that embarrassment.^ But before that sugges- 
tion reached its destination. Clay solemnly wrote him that 
only a devoted friend of the Bank in the Presidency would 
make a recharter possible, and warned him against Van 
Buren. He was convinced that the Jacksonian politicians 
had determined to make the Bank question the issue in the 
next campaign. "I have seen many evidences of it," he 
wrote. "The editors of certain papers have received their 
orders to that effect, and embrace every occasion to act in 
conformity with them." ^ But when Congress met in De- 
cember, and Jackson reiterated his views on the Bank, Bid- 
dle was earnestly urged from Washington to meet the issue 
at once by applying for a new charter. This advice was 
finally rejected. Congress, he wrote, was favorable, "and 
moreover the President would not reject the bill," but many 
members favorable to the recharter would prefer not to vote 
that session. Then, too, time was working the removal of 
prejudices.^ 

At the beginning of the session, December, 1831, with the 
charter five years to run, we are confronted with the mys- 

' Josiah Nichol to Biddle, Corresponcknce of Nicholas Biddle, 106. 
* Biddle to Nichol, ibid.. 107. 
» Clay to Biddle, ibid., 110. 
« Biddle to Clay, ibid., 116. 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 207 

tery of the injection of the issue at that time. We know, 
however, that the strain of uncertainty had been telHng on 
Biddle's temper. The vultures that play on the poHtical 
necessities of corporations were beginning to swoop down 
upon him. Duff Green, of the "National Telegraph," had 
appHed for a $20,000 loan.^ And mindful of the importance 
of propaganda, he had already decided to cultivate the press 
by paying it well for the publication of Bank literature.^ 
But just before the opening of the congressional session, his 
negotiations with McLane and Livingston of the Cabinet, 
both friendly to the Bank, had again diverted him from his 
disposition to fight. In October the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury had sat in the marble-front building in Philadelphia and 
told him of confidential communications with the President. 
Anxious to keep the Bank question out of the campaign, 
Jackson had reluctantly consented, on the importunities of 
Livingston and McLane, to omit all references to the Bank 
in his Message. Biddle feared it would be a mistake. Would 
it not be better merely to remind Congress of his previous 
comments, and leave the decision "with the representatives 
of the people?" The fact that this course was followed is 
one of the ironies of history. ^ Hardly had this decision been 
reached when Clay wrote from Ashland urging an immediate 
application for a new charter. This was a sensational rever- 
sal of views. Not only had he previously advised Biddle dif- 
ferently, but in August, 1830, he had taken strong grounds 
against such application so long before the expiration of the 
existing charter. "I am not prepared," he said then, "to say 
whether the charter ought, or ought not to be renewed on the 
expiration of its present term. The question is premature. 
I may not be alive to form any opinion on it. It belongs to 
posterity. It ought to be indefinitely postponed." * This 

* Corres-pondence of Nicholas Biddle, 124. ^ Ibid., 126. 
^ See Biddle's memorandum on conference, ibid., 128. 

* Speech at Cincinnati, Clay's Works, vii, 396. 



208 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

speech was to be used with deadly effect by Blair in the 
" Globe " a little later. ^ Even then, before reaching Washing- 
ton, Clay had determined to "turn up" the Bank charter as 
an issue. ■\ 

n 

When Congress met, Jackson had concluded to postpone his 
fight on the Bank. Three reasons entered into the decision 
— the friendliness of his Secretary of the Treasury to the 
institution, the realization that a majority in Congress fa- 
vored the recharter, and the fear that a contest during the 
session would throw the tremendous weight of the Bank's 
influence against him in the election. Most of his advisers, 
including Benton, were anxious to postpone the contest. 
Just as Biddle had thought that time would operate to the 
advantage of the institution, Benton was confident that it 
would work to its detriment, and he wished to strengthen 
the anti-Bank lines in the Senate and to have Van Buren in 
the chair when the contest came. McLane's pronouncedly 
pro-Bank report had deeply embarrassed the President's 
supporters. Creating indignation in some quarters, conster- 
nation in others, Jackson hastened to explain it away in a 
letter to Hamilton; but just how he persuaded himself that 
the views of the report did "not express any opposition to 
those entertained by myself," is not clear. ^ 

The Bank supporters had eagerly seized upon the McLane 
report, and Webb, of the "New York Courier and Enquirer," 
now deserting the Administration on the Bank question, com- 
mented glowingly upon its author and his views. That this 
was gall and wormwood to Jackson and his intimates is evi- 
dent in the correspondence which passed beween them. " The 

1 Commenting on it in the Globe, Jan. 14, 1832, Blair concludes: "The object of 
the Bank and politicians who build their hopes upon its power is at once to procure 
a new charter from a Congress which has not been elected by the people to pass upon 
that question." 
. * Hamilton's Reminiscences, 234. , 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 209 

article . . . was calculated if Blair had replied, to do McLane 
irreparable injury in a political point of view, because it 
might have brought him and the President into seeming col- 
lision," wrote Major Lewis to Hamilton.^ And all this time, 
McLane, who was one of Hamilton's correspondents, was 
frankly admitting to the latter that he had "most earnestly 
urged Mr. Clay not to attempt to pass a Bank bill at this 
session, insisting that, if deferred to the next session, he was 
satisfied that he could, by that time, induce Jackson to 
approve it"; but that Clay had "persisted in the hope, that 
if the President approved the bill, he would lose the support 
of those of his party who had approved his opposition to the 
Bank, and a vast many others who approved of the State 
Bank system." Or, on the other hand, "if the President ve- 
toed the bill, he would lose Pennsylvania and his election." ^ 
Thus it is clear enough that if Jackson could have determined, 
the Bank would not have been an issue in 1832. 

But Clay was pressing Biddle, and the latter devoted the 
whole of December to feeling his way. "I think they [the 
Jackson leaders] are desirous to have the Bank question 
settled by a renewal before the next presidential canvass, 
with any modifications to free the President from the charge 
of an entire abandonment of his original opposition," wrote 
one who had "seen a letter from the Private Secretary of the 
President to a gentleman" in Louisville.^ "Last night I had 
a long conversation with McLane," wrote the president of 
the Washington branch, "and I am authorized by him to say 
that it is his deliberate opinion and advice that a renewal of 
the charter ought not to be pressed during the present session, 
in which I concur most sincerely. The message is as much as 
you could expect. It shows that the Chief is wavering. If 
pressed into a corner immediately, neither McLane nor my- 
self will answer for the consequences." ^ From another cor- 

1 Hamilton's Reminiscences, 235-36. 2 JHfj^ 234-35. 

8 Edward Shippen to Biddle, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 136. * Ibid., 138. 



210 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

respondent Biddle learned that Barry, Woodbury, and Taney 
were hostile, being "under the influence of Blair, Lewis, Ken- 
dall & Co. who rule our Chief Magistrate"; that Blair had 
written a slashing attack upon the McLane report, which 
was only moderated after the Secretary of the Treasury had 
threatened to resign if the original were published. "I fear you 
will yet have trouble with our wise governors," he added. ^ 
A Virginia Congressman urged reasons for an immediate 
application. Jackson's popularity was on the wane, espe- l| 
cially in Congress, and his reelection notwithstanding being 
certain, he would have more prestige in the next Congress. M 
Calhoun, still Vice-President, would be serviceable among 
the Bank's enemies in the South, and McDuflSe, a follower of 
Calhoun, would be chairman of the House Committee to pass 
upon the application. ^ 

"My own belief," wrote the wily Clay, "is that, if now 
called upon, he [Jackson] would not negative the bill, but 
that if he should be reelected, the event might and probably 
would be different." At any rate, all the friends of the Bank 
with whom Clay had conversed "expect the application to 
be made." ^ In corroboration of Clay's views, Webster wrote 
that, as a result of conversations, he had been strongly con- 
firmed in his opinion "that it is expedient for the Bank to 
apply for a renewal of the Charter without delay." ^ 

Confused by such a medley of counsel, Biddle decided to 
have the situation studied on the ground. Thomas Cad- 
walader, a trusted Bank agent, could be depended upon to 
leave party considerations out of his survey, and on Tuesday, 
the 20th of December, this servitor took up his quarters at 
Barnard's Hotel. ^ The next day found him closeted, first 
with McLane, who warned him of a certain veto, and advised 

* Robert Gibbs to Biddle, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 139. 

2 C. F. Mercer to Biddle, ibid., 140. 

3 Clay to Biddle, ibid., 142. 

* Webster to Biddle, ibid., 145. 

* Site of the Willard, 14th Street and the Avenue. 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 211 

him to canvass Congress to ascertain whether the Bank 
could muster the two thirds necessary to override it. A pre- 
Hminary survey that day was discouraging, and the evening 
found the agent again with McLane, who reiterated his plea 
for a postponement until after the election. On Thursday 
the agent met McDuffie, who urged an immediate applica- 
tion until "staggered" by what Cadwalader had learned of 
the probable vote to override the veto. He then advised the 
Bank to feel its way cautiously. Friday found him dining 
with Senator Smith, a Democrat, who opposed the agitation 
of the question that session, since it would mean a Jackson 
and anti-Jackson vote, and lose the Bank ten votes it could 
depend upon the next year.^ It did not take the sagacious 
agent long to sense the selfish political motives of the Clay 
leaders. "It is evident," he wrote Biddle, "that W.'s [Web- 
ster's] opinions are guided, in some degree, by party feelings 
— as seems to be the case with most of the Clay men." In 
John Quincy Adams he found a cooler head, and one in whose 
judgment he had more confidence. Where Webster had urged 
that the application be made if "a bare majority in Congress 
could be mustered," Adams favored postponement "unless 
a strong vote can be ascertained." But, thinking the situa- 
tion over on Christmas Day, and after another and more 
favorable canvass of the available votes, he began to lean 
toward the Clay opinion. In the case of a postponement 
some of the Bank's friends would be "luke-warm," Webster 
would be "cold or perhaps hostile," if the Bank bent to the 
Government influence. After another conference with Mc- 
Lane, he thought he would advise the Bank to start the 
memorial. In this disposition he was confirmed by a visit on 
Christmas night from the brother of the Secretary of State, 
a Whig and a follower of Clay, who brought the solemn assur- 

^ These ten, Dickerson of New Jersey, Dallas and Wilkins of Pennsylvania, Smith 
of Maryland, Mangum of North Carolina, Forsyth of Georgia, Poindexter of Mis- 
sissippi, Kane and Robinson of Illinois, and Hendricks of Indiana. 



212 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ance that Livingston, McLane, and Cass would prevent the 
veto. The outcome of it all was that Cadwalader was won 
over to the Whig plan.^ The moment the agent returned to 
Philadelphia, McLane, assuming the chilly dignity of resent- 
ment, wrote Biddle, restating his position and curtly declar- 
ing that he could not, "as one of the constitutional advisers 
of the President," object to the exercise of his veto power, ^ 
But three days later, Webster, in a reassuring note, wrote 
that the decision to present the memorial was "exactly 
right." 3 

The Whig politicians were determined that the Bank should 
be dragged into politics, and they had their way. The desire 
of Biddle to accept compromises proposed by McLane were 
ruthlessly brushed aside by his political friends. The story 
of the meeting at which Clay forced the issue is significant 
and dramatic. McLane had summoned Biddle to Washing- 
ton and submitted a proposition for a recharter which, he 
contended, would meet with the approval of the President. 
After returning to Philadelphia and consulting with his direc- 
tors, an agreement was reached to accept the compromise. 
Hurrying back to the capital, Biddle conceived the unhappy 
notion of first consulting with the political friends of the 
institution in the Congress, before calling upon McLane. 
Fatal error! 

An historical political conference was called. There, of 
course, was Nicholas Biddle, financial American autocrat 
of his time, elegant, suave, polished to scintillation, a lover of 
literature, a brilliant conversationalist, with a graceful epis- 
tolary style, which was as dangerous to him as loquacity to 
a diplomat. He had been schooled in tact while serving as 
the Secretary of the American Legation at Paris under 
Monroe. Clever, unscrupulous, practicing diplomacy where 

1 For Cadwalader's reports see Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 146-61. 

2 McLane to Biddle, ibid, 165. 

3 Webster to Biddle, ibid., 169. 




^/^/^^^^^ 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 213 

straightforward methods would have served better, he had 
assiduously cultivated public men until he had created a bi- 
partisan Bank party in both branches of the Congress. In 
his Philadelphia home the great men of his day partook 
of his hospitality. Before Jackson reached the Presidency, 
the president of the Bank of the United States was in better 
position to foresee the proceedings of Congress than the 
responsible Chief Executive of the people. Instead of con- 
cealing his power, he loved to flaunt it in the face of authority. 
"Emperor Nicholas" smiled and bowed blandly to his title. 

And there, of course, was Clay, leader of his party, the 
greatest genius in the Senate, seemingly destined to the 
presidential dignity, and for years one of Biddle's most 
trusted friends and advisers. He had been on the pay-roll of 
the Bank as its counsel in Kentucky and Ohio. 

There, too, was John Sergeant, there by right as chief 
counsel of the Bank, but there, too, by right, as Clay's run- 
ning mate in the election, for he had been nominated for 
Vice-President. 

And there sat Webster, upon whose eloquence and wisdom 
the Bank had learned to lean. But he sat there that day, 
less as the champion of the Bank than as a partisan supporter 
of Clay and Sergeant. 

The compromise proposition was submitted by Biddle, 
and, after some pretense at discussion, it was vetoed by Clay 
and Webster, on the ground that "the question of a re- 
charter had progressed too far to render any compromise or 
change of front expedient." ^ 

A little nonplussed, Biddle and Sergeant retired for further 
consideration, and returned to the conference with the poli- 
i ticians in the evening still convinced that the McLane com- 
promise should be accepted. And it was then that Clay and 
Webster, by assuming an injured air, literally blackmailed 
their Philadelphia friends into the acceptance of their plan, 

[| * Weed's Autobiography, i, 373. 



214 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

asserting their ability at the time to carry the charter through 
in the face of a veto, but significantly adding that they 
would no longer be responsible for anything that might occur 
" if in the heat of the contest the Bank, abandoning its re- 
liable friends, should strike hands with its foe." ^ Thus it was 
neither Jackson nor Biddle that forced the Bank into the 
campaign of 1832, but Henry Clay, thinking solely in terms 
of politics and self-interest, as he saw them. 

m 

The winter roads between Philadelphia and Washington 
were ribbons of mud, cut across by frozen streams. A stage- 
coach, bumping and splattering through the mire, struck an 
obstruction, turned over, and General Cadwalader, with the 
Bank's memorial in his pocket, arose from the wreck with an 
injured shoulder that was to delay its presentation to the 
Congress. But three weeks after the conference in Washing- 
ton it was delivered into the hands of its friends. 

In the Senate it was presented by a Democrat, George M. 
Dallas of Pennsylvania, acting under strict instructions from 
the Legislature of his State, but very much against his per- 
sonal judgment. In the House it was entrusted to one who 
could act with greater spirit, because of venomous hostility 
to Jackson — the vehement and picturesque McDuffie. 

On the motion of Dallas, a select committee was chosen in 
the Senate to consider the memorial, composed of four friends 
of the Bank and one enemy. In the House, the fighting be- 
gan at once. Instead of requesting a select committee, Mc- 
Duffie asked a reference to his own Committee on Ways and 
Means — packed with friends of the Bank. This was good 
tactics. Andrew Stevenson, Speaker of the House, and a 
Jacksonian Democrat, could clearly not be entrusted with 
the selection of a special committee. An animated debate 
followed, and the McDuffie motion prevailed by a narrow 

* Weed's Autobiography, i, 373. 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 215 

margin of ten votes. But that was not to be the end of the 
matter — not so long as there was a Jackson in the White 
House, a Benton in the Senate, and a Kendall on the side lines. 
The plan of parliamentary warfare was devised by the mas- 
ter parliamentarian from Missouri. It contemplated numer- 
ous amendments and elaborate discussion in the Senate; and 
in the House, an investigation into the condition and methods 
of the Bank. Benton immediately furnished a new member 
of the House, Clayton, with an indictment in many counts, 
some justifiable, and others having nothing more substantial 
than gossip behind them. But even these served. The de- 
bate was brisk. James K. Polk led for the Administration 
in the strongest speech of his congressional career; and Mc- 
Duffie, sincerely believing in the purity of the Bank, and 
fearing the effect of opposition to an investigation, making 
only a perfunctory objection. At the time it was presented, 
Biddle was relying for information on Charles Jared Ingersoll, 
who had been sent to Washington in an attempt to con- 
ciliate Jackson, and was in constant communication with 
Livingston and McLane. It is significant of Jackson's meth- 
ods that his Secretary of State authorized Ingersoll to in- 
form Biddle that the President had nothing to do with the 
resolution, wished to end the matter that session, and would 
sign a rechartering measure if satisfactorily framed.^ But 
the easy capitulation of McDuflSe in permitting the passage 
of the resolution caused poignant distress in Bank circles. 
Ingersoll concluded that the Carolinian preferred to have the 
tariff debate precede that on the Bank.'^ 

Thus the investigation was ordered. The apologists for the 
Bank among historians persist in the fallacy that its enemies 
had no expectation of finding anything wrong. This is a re- 
markable conclusion. Benton thoroughly expected it. The 
son of Alexander Hamilton had no doubt of it.^ Jackson 

* Ingersoll to Biddle, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 187. ' Ibid., 188. 

' Hamilton's Reminiscences, 243. 



i 



216 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

was serious about it. "The affairs of the Bank I antici- 
pated to be precisely such as you have intimated," he wrote 
to Hamilton. "When fully disclosed, and the branches 
looked into it will be seen that its corrupting influence has 
been extended everywhere that could add to its strength 
and secure its recharter. I wish it may not have extended 
its influence over too many members of Congress." ^ 

The committee of investigation submitted three reports. 
The majority report charged usury, the issuance of branch 
bank notes as currency, the selling of coin, loans to editors, 
brokers, and members of Congress, donations to roads and 
canals, the construction of houses to rent and sell, and the 
sale of stock obtained from the Government through special 
acts of Congress. The minority report, and that of Adams, 
who reported separately, were laudatory of the institution. 
Nothing was proved. Campaign material was furnished, and 
nothing more. 

In the midst of the fighting, on May 30th, Nicholas Biddle 
moved upon the capital and took personal charge of his forces. 
He entertained at dinners at Barnard's. He daily repaired 
to the Capitol to meet emergencies. He conferred freely with 
Livingston and McLane, hoping through them to conciliate 
the President. So positive was he that the investigation, 
by proving nothing, had disarmed hostility, that he wrote 
expansively, on his arrival, of his willingness to consider 
with Jackson such modifications as would satisfy the Pres- 
ident. ^ In less than a week he was disillusioned of the idea of 
an easy triumph. "It has been a week of hard work, anxiety 
and alternating hopes and fears," he wrote Cadwalader, "but 
I think that we may now rely with confidence in a favorable 
result." 3 All through June the battle raged in the Senate, 
and it was not until July 3d that the "Emperor Nicholas" 

* Hamilton's Reminiscences, 244. 

» Biddle to Cadwalader, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 191. 

» Ibid.. 192. 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 217 

was able to write of the passage of the bill by that body, 
and to "congratulate our friends most cordially upon their 
most satisfactory results." The victory was achieved by a 
vote of 28 to 20, with Dallas, Wilkins, and Poindexter, among 
the Democrats, voting for the bill. In the House, the Bank 
won by a vote of 106 to 84. 

"Now for the President," wrote Biddle. "My belief is 
that the President will veto the bill, though that is not gen- 
erally known or believed." ^ And Clay at the same time 
wrote: "The Bank bill will, I believe, pass the House, and if 
Jackson is to be believed, he will veto it." ^ Thus, at this 
stage, it is evident that Biddle had reconciled himself to 
Clay's plan of making the fate of the Bank the issue in the 
campaign. Among Jackson's friends there was no doubt as 
to his intentions. Both McLane and Livingston had warned 
the banker. Three months before, Hamilton had written a 
friend that, in the event of its passage, Jackson would 
promptly veto the measure. "He is open and determined 
upon this point. I conferred with him yesterday upon the 
subject. I told him what the Opposition avowed as their 
motive for pushing the bill at this session. He replied: 'I 
will prove to them that I never flinch; that they were mis- 
taken when they expected to act upon me with such consid- 
erations. ' " ^ 

IV 

When the bill reached Jackson, he knew that he could not 
count on the unanimous support of his Cabinet on the veto. 
Livingston, McLane, and Cass were frankly antagonistic to 
his purpose, Woodbury was uncertain, while Barry, always 
acquiescing in his chief's policies, scarcely counted. Among 
all the men who sat about the table in the Cabinet room, the 
jonly one who heartily sympathized with his intent was Roger 

' Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 192. ^ Clay's Works, iv, 340. 

^ Hamilton's Reminiscences, 2i3. 



218 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Taney. In February, Ingersoll had found him against the 
Bank, but Livingston then "hoped to convert him"; and 
while the Bank representative had "found him just now 
closeted with Kendall," this was so far from discouraging 
him that he had not even despaired of Kendall and Lewis, 
and felt that he had established "a good understanding" 
with Blair of the "Globe." ^ On the day the bill reached the 
White House, Taney was absent from Washington, but he 
had gone over the ground thoroughly with the President, 
and had written him a letter setting forth reasons why, in 
the event of the bill's passage, it should be vetoed. 

On the day of its passage, Martin Van Buren landed in 
New York, and the following morning he started for the 
capital. It was midnight when he reached Washington, but, 
in compliance with a letter from Jackson, which awaited 
him on landing, he proceeded through the dark streets to the 
White House where he was instantly ushered into the Presi- 
dent's room. The grim old fighter was sitting up in bed, 
supported by pillows, his wretched health clearly denoted in 
his countenance.^ But there was the passion of battle in his 
blood, and it flashed in his eye as he eagerly grasped the hand 
of his favorite, and, retaining it, poured forth the story af the 
Bank Bill, and expressed his satisfaction on the arrival of a 
faithful friend at such a critical juncture. When Van Buren 
expressed the hope that he would not hesitate to veto the 
bill, Jackson's face beamed. "It is the only way," said the 
Red Fox, "you can discharge the great duty you owe to the 
country and yourself." ^ By Van Buren, the old man's grat- 
ification was easily understood, for he knew of the desertion 
of the greater part of the Cabinet. i 

There is some confusion among those who should have , 
known as to the authorship of the Veto Message. In this 
instance Hamilton was not called in, albeit sympathizing 

1 Ingersoll to Riddle, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 183. 

* Vao Buren's Political Parties in the United States, 314. ^ Ibid. i 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 219 

heartily with Jackson's purpose. According to one of his 
biographers ^ the ideas were contributed by Livingston, 
Benton, Taney, and Jackson, and the phrasing was by 
Amos Kendall, Blair, and Lewis. In view of Livingston's 
negotiations with Biddle, we may safely accept his denial of 
having had any part in the Message. It was inevitable that 
Benton should have been consulted. And it is known that 
Taney was summoned back to Washington to assist in the 
framing. During the entire time it was being written. Van 
Buren, who remained at the capital, with the document open 
to his inspection, did not have any "direct agency in its con- 
struction." 2 His enemies at the time, however, insisted that 
he was a party to the phrasing. "Mr. Van Buren arrived at 
the President's on Sunday," a correspondent in Washington 
wrote Biddle, "and to-day the President sent to the Senate 
his veto on the Bank Bill." ^ That Major Lewis and Blair 
were called in to assist in the actual wording is quite proba- 
ble, but it may be set down as positive that the greater part 
of the document as it reached the Senate was the product of 
the pen of the mysterious recluse, Amos Kendall. 

That such a Message from such a pen at such a time should 
be strikingly strong and couched in such language as to 
appeal to the electorate of the Nation was inevitable. It has 
been fashionable to describe it as demagogic because of its 
appeal to the masses and its protest against the conversion 
by the rich of governmental agencies to their personal ends, 
and because of its objections to the foreign stockholders in 
the Bank of the United States. It was, of course, a campaign 
document — intended as such. Jackson understood per- 
fectly that the presentation of the memorial for a recharter 
four years before the expiration of the existing charter, and 
in the year of the presidential election, was a campaign move 
on the part of Clay. He knew that Clay was appealing to 

^ Buell. 2 Van Buren's Political Parties in the United States, 218. 

' Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 193. 



220 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

wealth and power — he appealed to the people. And his 
appeal was to the people of the United States. 

In this stirring appeal to the prejudices of the people, as 
well as to their interests, as the Jacksonians saw it, there was 
but one real blunder, and that in phrasing. In discussing 
the constitutionality of the Bank, Jackson said: "Each 
officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution, 
swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not 
as it is understood by others." Upon this was to be predi- 
cated the assertion thaf Jackson had announced a philoso- 
phy of chaos, with each petty officer passing upon the con- 
stitutionality of laws, and irrespective and in contempt of 
the Supreme Court. The more conservative friends of the 
President interpreted the words employed as meaning "that 
in giving or withholding his assent to the bill for the recharter 
of the Bank, it was his right and duty to decide the question 
of its constitutionality for himself, uninfluenced by any 
opinion or judgment which the Supreme Court had pro- 
nounced upon that point, farther than his judgment was 
satisfied by the reasons it had given for its decision," * But 
there were other expressions in the Message that must have 
appeared as little short of appeals to anarchy to the more 
conservative element. "It is to be regretted that the rich and 
powerful too often bend the acts of Government to their self- 
ish purposes." "Every man is equally entitled to protection 
by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these nat- 
ural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, 
gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer 
and the powerful more potent, the humble members of soci- 
ety — the farmers, mechanics and laborers — who have 
neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to 
themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their 
government." "There are no necessary evils in government. 
Its evils exist only in its abuses." "Many of our rich have 

* Political Parties in the United States, 313-14, and 317. 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 221 

not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, 
but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress." 
Here was a Message striking an entirely new note in Amer- 
ican politics, and not without justification. So completely 
had the country been under the domination of the powerful, 
politically, financially, and socially, previous to the Jackson 
regime, that the Message was actually hailed with delight by 
the followers of Clay. 

"As to the veto message," wrote JBiddle, "I am delighted 
with it. It has all the fury of the unchained panther, biting 
the bars of his cage. It is really a manifesto of anarchy, such 
as Marat and Robespierre might have issued to the mob of 
the Faubourg St. Antoine; and my hope is that it will con- 
tribute to relieve the country from the domination of these 
miserable people." ^ The personal organ of Clay, the "Lex- 
ington Observer," commented thus: "It is a mixture of the 

' Demagogue and the Despot, of depravity, desperation and 
feelings of malice and vengeance partially smothered. It is 

■ the type of the detested hypocrite, who, cornered at all points, 

' still cannot abandon entirely his habitual artifice, but at 
length, finding himself stripped naked, in a tone of defiance 

'says: 'I am a villain; now do your worst and so will I.'" ^ 
So little did the Bank and its supporters understand the 
psychology of the "mob" that it published and circulated 
thirty thousand copies of the Message at its own expense! 

But if the Whigs were pleased with its tone, the Democrats 
'were delighted. Either Blair or Kendall in a fulsome editorial 
in the "Globe" found it "difficult to describe in adequate 
language the sublimity of the moral spectacle now presented 

* to the American people in the person of Andrew Jackson," 
and that "in this act the glories of the battle-field are 
'eclipsed — it is the crowning chaplet of an immortal fame." ^ 

* Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 196. 

' Balir reproduced this in the Globe of July 26th in the midst of the campaign. 



s 



Washington Globe. July 14, 1832. 



222 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

And Hugh Lawson White, himself a banker, a statesman, a 
man of property, and a patriot of impeccable purity, de- 
clared that it would give to Jackson a more enduring fame 
and deeper gratitude than the greatest of his victories in the 
field. 

Both parties were satisfied with the Message. 



Never in the history of the Republic had feeling been 
aroused to a more dangerous pitch than during the period 
of the Bank fight. Senator White, a calm, well-poised man 
of years, was not at all certain that even he could escape a 
personal encounter. "Everything here is in a bustle," he 
wrote. "Nothing out of which mischief can be made is 
suffered to slumber. Ill blood is produced by almost every 
event; and a great disposition is manifested by some to 
appeal to the trial of battle. ... No man can tell when 
or with whom he is to be involved. I will do all that a pru- 
dent man ought to do to avoid difficulties, but should it be 
my lot to have them forced upon me, my reliance is that 
Providence will guide me through them safely." * 

The debate in the Senate following the Veto Message was 
significant. The great Field Marshals of the Bank, who had 
maintained silence until now, appeared upon the scene with 
impassioned speeches of denunciation and solemn warning. 
The import of the speeches of Clay and Webster could not 
have been clearer. They were designed to intimidate the 
electorate into voting against Jackson by the most gloomy 
predictions of panic and distress. Webster, who spoke first 
and made by long odds the most powerful presentation 
against the Veto, dwelt with funereal melancholy upon the 
President's determination to overturn American institutions, 
basing this absurd theory on the unhappy sentence referred 
to above. 

* Memoir of Hugh Lawson White, 80. 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 223 

But the one note he struck in the beginning and pounded 
to the end was that of intimidation. The country was pros- 
perous and yet there was "an unaccountable disposition to 
destroy the most useful and most approved institutions of the 
Government." Unless Jackson should be defeated at the 
polls the Bank would fall, and in its fall pull down the pillars 
of prosperity and involve all in a common ruin. The Bank 
would have to call in its debts at once. The distress would 
be especially acute in the States on the Mississippi and its 
waters — where votes were needed for Clay. There thirty 
millions of the Bank's money was out on loans and discounts, 
and how could this be immediately collected without untold 
suffering and misery .^^ The great orator, however, evidently 
afraid that his hints at the election had been too subtle, soon 
threw off the mask boldly. 

"An important election is at hand," he said, "and the 
renewal of the Bank Charter is a pending object of great in- 
terest, and some excitement. Should not the opinions of 
men high in office and candidates for reelection be known on 
this as on other important questions.^ " And thence he argued 
that the life of the Republic, the preservation of the Consti- 
tution, the salvation of society from anarchy, and the pros- 
perity of the people, were all inseparably interwoven with 
the National Bank and the candidacy of Clay. "No old 
school Federalist," says Van Buren, "who had grown to 
man's estate with views and opinions in regard to the char- 
acter of the people which that faith seldom failed to inspire, 
I could doubt the efficacy of such an exposition in turning the 
minds of all classes of the community in the desired direc- 
tion." » 

If the Veto was satisfactory to the Whigs — to the sur- 
prise of the Democrats — Webster's avowed purpose to 
;make it the issue in the campaign was satisfactory to the 
Democrats — to the equal astonishment of the Whigs. When 

' Political Parties in the United States, 321. 



224 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the great New England orator sat down, Hugh Lawson White 
of Tennessee, a banker, fluent, logical, and forceful, lost no 
time in accepting Webster's "issue." 

"I thank the Senator," he said, "for the candid avowal, 
that unless the President will sign such a charter as will suit 
the directors, they intend to interfere in the election, and en- 
deavor to displace him. With the same candor I state, that 
after this declaration, this charter shall never be renewed 
with my consent. . . . Sir, if under these circumstances the 
charter is renewed, the elective franchise is destroyed, and 
the liberties and prosperity of the people are delivered over 
to this moneyed institution, to be disposed of at their dis- 
cretion. Against this I enter my solemn protest." 

Even the most ardent supporters of Clay will hardly point 
to his speech on the Veto as evidence of his power. Com- 
pared with Webster's or White's, it was mere froth, lacking 
in both substance and style, and only notable in its insist- 
ence that the failure of the recharter would be fatal to the 
West, as the continuance of Jackson in oflBce would be sub- 
versive of all government. 

The reply of Benton was characteristic in its slashing 
style, its exhaustive appeal to facts and figures, and chiefly 
important as a campaign argument in its elaborate discussion 
of the relations of the Bank with the Western States. Not to 
be outdone in dire predictions, he insisted that the triumph 
of the Bank would mean the end of free institutions; that 
"no individual could stand in the States against the power of 
the Bank, and the Bank flushed with the victory over the 
conqueror of the conquerors of Bonaparte"; that "an oli- 
garchy would be immediately established, and that oligarchy, 
in a few generations, would ripen into a monarchy." He re- 
alized that all nations must ultimately perish. "Rome had 
her Pharsalia and Greece her Chseronea, and this Republic, 
more illustrious in her birth, was entitled to a death as glori- 
ous as theirs." He would not have her "die by poison'* 



CLAY FINDS HIS ISSUE 225 

or "perish in corruption," but "a field of arms and glory 
should be her end." 

And he, too, eagerly accepted the challenge of Webster: 
"Why debate the Bank question now, and not before?" he 
asked. "With what object do they speak? Sir, this -post facto 
debate is not for the Senate, nor the President, nor to alter 
the fate of the Bank Bill. It is to arouse the ofiicers of the 
Bank — to direct the efforts of its mercenaries in their de- 
signs upon the people — to bring out its streams of corrupt- 
ing influence, by inspiring hope, and to embody all its recruits 
at the polls to vote against Jackson. Without an avowal we 
would all know this; but we have not been left without an 
avowal. The Senator from Massachusetts commenced his 
speech by showing that Jackson must be put down; that he 
stood as an impassable barrier between the Bank and a new 
charter; and that the road to success was through the ballot 
boxes at the presidential election. The object of this debate is 
then known, confessed, declared, avowed; the Bank is in the 
field; enlisted for the war; a battering ram — the catapulta, 
not of the Romans but of the National Repubhcans [Whigs]; 
not to beat down the walls of hostile cities, but to beat down 
the citadel of American liberty; to batter down the rights of 
the people; to destroy a patriot and a hero; to command the 
elections and to elect a Bank President." 

Thus the politicians sounded the keynotes of the two par- 
ties in the approaching campaign in the country. 

The debate was not to end without its serio-comedy. 
Benton had criticized Clay for lack of decent courtesy to the 
President, and when he resumed his seat, Clay arose to ques- 
tion the Missourian's qualification to pass on decent cour- 
tesy, and to revive the story that Benton had once said that 
should Jackson ever reach the Presidency, Senators "would 
have to legislate with pistols and dirks." Benton excitedly 
denied it. The lie was passed. The angry statesmen were 
called to order and forced to apologize to the Senate, and 



226 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

thus the Whig nominee for the Presidency closed the debate 
in a none too dignified fashion. 

The necessary two thirds to override the veto could not be 
mustered, and Clay left Washington on the adjournment of 
Congress, July 16th, happy in the knowledge that "some- 
thing had turned up " that would force the Bank and all its 
resources and influence to battle with a personal motive for 
his election. 

And Jackson and his friends were jubilant. 

Thus ended one of the longest and most bitter sessions the 
American Congress had ever known, "fierce in the beginning, 
and becoming more furious to the end." * 

» Benton's Thirty Years' View. 



CHAPTER IX ' 

THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 

I 

The campaign of 1832 marked the beginning of many things 
that have come to be commonplace in American politics. 
For the first time the politicians were under the compulsion 
of cultivating and conciliating, not factions and groups, but 
the masses of the people. The day of Democracy had dawned, 
with all that means of good and evil. And in this struggle for 
the suffrage of the masses, Clay had unwittingly intrigued 
the Jacksonians into the advantage. Accustomed for years 
to relying solely on the wealthy and the influential, the great 
Whig leaders signally failed to appreciate that the very 
elements they had rallied to their support would tend to 
alienate the mechanics of the cities, the farmers of the plains, 
the pioneers struggling with poverty on the fringe of the 
forest. Thurlow Weed, who was one of the few practical 
Whig politicians, saw it, but he was then comparatively 
obscure. The clever politicians of the Kitchen Cabinet in- 
stantly sensed the opportunity and grasped it. A great 
moneyed institution, never popular with the masses, was 
seeking the humiliation of the most popular of Presidents. 
The most fortunate of that day were responding to the call 
of the Bank. The first battle at the polls between the "soul- 
less corporation" and the "sons of toil" was on. For the 
first time in a presidential election the demagogue appeared 
with his appeals to class prejudice and class hate, and all the 
demagogy was not on the part of the Jacksonians. If these 
sought to arouse the masses against the prosperous, the pros- 
perous, with gibes about the "mob," were quite as busy in 
prejudicing the classes against the masses. 



228 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

And in this campaign the press played a more conspicuous 
and important part than ever before. The Jacksonians, who 
had tested the poHtical possibihties of the press four years 
before, had perfected an organization throughout the coun- 
try dependent on the editorial lead of the "Globe." If the 
political leaders of the Whigs were even now slow to grasp 
the potentiality of publicity, Nicholas Biddle of the Bank 
was more alert, and, through his agency, the powerful "New 
York Courier and Enquirer," edited by James Watson Webb, 
deserted the Democracy to espouse the cause of Clay and 
"the monster." That money played a part in the conversion 
was soon established in a congressional investigation; and 
when the "National Intelligencer," the Whig organ, joy- 
ously hailed the convert, Blair was able sarcastically to 
comment on its being "charmed with his [Webb's] honesty 
and independence in complying with his bargain with the 
Bank — and the bold, frank and honorable way in which he 
unsays all that he has said in favor of the President for the 
price paid him by Mr. Biddle." ^ Thus the editors in 1832 
fought with a ferocity never before approached. 

From the beginning Amos Kendall realized that the appeal 
would have to be made to the masses. He therefore con- 
ceived the idea of inaugurating the campaign with a more 
solemn and dignified appeal to the more intellectual element. 
The result was a carefully prepared campaign document re- 
viewing the work of the first three years of Jackson's Admin- 
istration. With a master hand he marshaled the triumphs of 
the Administration, and marched them — an imposing pro- 
cession — before the reader. He anticipated and met all 
attacks. If parasites on the public service had been displaced 
by friends of Jackson, the new blood had injected new energy 
into the public offices. Business, long in arrears, had been 
brought up. Public accounts were more promptly rendered 
and settled. Scamps had been detected and scourged from 

» Globe, Aug. 29, 1832. .' 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 229 

office, and peculations to the amount of $280,000 had been 
uncovered. Economy and increased efficiency had resulted in 
the saving of hundreds of thousands. 

In our foreign relations Kendall found nothing to be desired. 
Jackson had found Colombian cruisers depredating upon 
our commerce, and Colombian ports subjecting American 
cargoes to oppressive duties; he secured indemnities and the 
reduction of duties and the admission of American vessels to 
Colombian waters on the same footing as those of Colombia. 
He found no treaty with Turkey and the waters of the Bos- 
phorus closed to us; he negotiated a treaty and our flag waved 
in the Bosphorus. He found no treaty with Austria — one 
was negotiated ; a suspended treaty with Mexico — it was 
put in operation; the indemnity claims against Denmark 
for spoliation unpressed — he collected $750,000; the British 
West Indian controversy entangled by unskilled diplomacy 
— he untangled it with skillful diplomacy, and won a victory 
for American commerce; the French spoliation claims held in 
abeyance — and he triumphed there. 

This brilliant foreign policy, he continued, had breathed 
new life into our domestic and foreign commerce, until "a 
commercial activity scarcely equaled in our history" was 
enjoyed. The hammers were heard in the shipyards, laborers 
were employed at high wages, prosperity pervaded every 
class and section. At Boston alone fifteen vessels were fitting 
out for trade in the Black Sea. 

Despite these achievements Kendall complained that the 
President's political foes had devoted their energy and in- 
genuity to obstruction alone. Congress had refused or de- 
layed the necessary appropriations, denied him the means 
to maintain a mission to France, refused to confirm the 
appointment of his Minister to England, trumped up charges 
of fraud against his friends, resorted to childish investiga- 
tions, charged the President with sending bullies to attack 
members of Congress and to spy upon them, and capped the 



230 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

climax of insufferable impudence with resolutions to inquire 
into the private conversations of the hero of New Orleans. 

This campaign document, the first of its kind, was sent 
broadcast over the country to awaken the indignation of the 
faithful and to revive and intensify the cry, "Hurrah for 
Jackson." ^ And it had the effect intended. The Jacksonians 
became all the more militant, ready to pounce upon and rend 
their enemies. Even the courageous Tyler, unfriendly to 
Jackson, cautioned his daughter in a letter home — "Speak of 
me always as a Jackson man whenever you are questioned." ^ 
With this document in the hands of the intellectual, the 
Kitchen Cabinet turned with their appeal to the masses on 
the Bank issue. This speedily became paramount. But Clay 
and the Whigs were busy with intrigues with groups, and, to 
understand the remarkable campaign in its ramifications, 
it is necessary to pause for a peep behind the scenes where 
Clay may be seen in a light other than that of a man who 
"would rather be right than President." We shall find him 
as willing, in Virginia, to unite with the champions of the 
Nullification he abhorred, as, in New York, with the party 
of the Anti-Masons he despised. 

n 

After the fashion of the old school politician of his day. Clay 
relied upon intrigue, upon the cultivation of groups with 
special interests and grievances. During the winter in Con- 
gress he had devoted himself to the consolidation of business 
and the ultra-conservative elements behind his candidacy. 
The bitterness of the contest was foreshadowed in the spring 
when Blair announced the publication of an extra weekly 
issue of the "Globe"; and in August, Duff Green made a 
similar announcement as to the "Telegraph." While Clay 
planned to win on the Bank issue, he very early began a 

* This document is in Amos Kendall's Autobiography, 296-303. 

* Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 429. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 231 

furious flirtation with the Nullifiers and the Anti-Masons, 
thus injecting side issues that the Jacksonians were quick to 
accept. In April, Clay was writing a Virginia friend ^ of a 
possible coalition with the Nullification forces in three or 
four Southern States where extreme State-Rights views were 
prevalent. Governor Floyd of Virginia, destined to receive 
the electoral vote of the South Carolina Nullifiers, and for a 
time alienated from Clay, was making overtures for a con- 
cihation. Duff Green, a messenger in Calhoun's livery, had 
made a remarkable proposition. The purport of this propo- 
sition was that Calhoun's friends would present his name for 
the Presidency if assured of three or four of the Southern 
States; that about August he would be announced as a can- 
didate; that if arrangements could be made with Clay to 
place no electoral ticket in the field in Virginia, and to throw 
the support of his friends to Calhoun, the latter could carry 
the Old Dominion; that carrying Virginia, he would have a 
fair chance of carrying North Carolina, Georgia, and South 
Carolina, with a fighting chance in Alabama and Missis- 
sippi; and, accomplishing that, he could defeat the reelection 
of Jackson, and force the determination of the issue upon the 
House of Representatives where Clay would no doubt be 
elected to the satisfaction of Calhoun. The wily editor made 
it clear to Clay that he was to have no ticket in the States 
mentioned, and should actively cooperate with Calhoun in 
Virginia. 

And Clay was not shocked! But he had not "assumed 
that Calhoun had much political capital anywhere outside 
South Carolina," and doubted the practicability of aban- 
doning a ticket in Virginia because of the imputations that 
would follow. And yet, if Calhoun could, by any chance, 
carry three or four of the Southern States, it was a consum- 
mation devoutly to be wished. "Let me hear from you, my 
dear friend, upon this matter," he wrote, *'and particularly 

* Judge Brooke. 



232 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

your views as to the strength of the party of Mr. Calhoun in 
Virginia. Has it not relapsed into Jaeksonism.? Can it be 
brought forth again in its original force to the support of 
Mr. Calhoun? Suppose Mr. Calhoun is not put forth as a 
candidate, what course, generally, will his friends in Vir- 
ginia pursue? Could our friends be prevailed upon to unite 
upon a ticket favorable to Mr. Calhoun? Or, in the event of 
no ticket being put up, would they not divide between Jack- 
son and Calhoun, the larger part probably going to Jack- 
son?" ^ The pet plan of the Calhoun conspirators failed, and 
in August, Duff Green set forth on a tour of investigation 
into New York and Pennsylvania, returning to Washington 
encouraged in the conviction that the defeat of Jackson could 
be accomplished through the unification of all the hostile 
elements against him. In announcing the campaign extras 
of the "Telegraph" — could he by chance have visited the 
marble bank building in Philadelphia? — he declared that 
"we believe that our duty requires us to demonstrate that 
General Jackson ought not to be reelected." There was no 
mistaking the meaning of this move, and the Jacksonians 
were instantly on their toes. Under the caption, "Consum- 
mation of the Coalition," Blair vigorously denounced it in 
the "Globe." "If Mr. Clay were elected," he wrote, "Mr. 
Calhoun is well aware that it would instantly establish the 
Southern League, which is looked to by him as his only hope 
of ever attaining political power. This is the basis of the 
coalition between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun. It is like that 
of Octavius and Anthony which severed the Roman em- 
pire. 2 

That Blair had not misinterpreted was immediately evi- 
dent in the response of the Whig press. The influential 
Pleasants, of the "Richmond Whig," warmly commended 
Green's action and promised, "on the part of the 'Telegraph,' 

> Clay to Brooke, Clay's Works, iv, 832-33. 
* Globe. Aug. 25. 1832. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 233 

a luminous expose of the misrule of Jacksonism." "Ah," 
wrote Blair, "the 'Richmond Whig' upon the appearance of 
Duff Green's proposals for a joint opposition leaps into its 
embrace." ^ And from that moment the "Globe" kept before 
its readers constantly the Calhoun heresy and the coalition 
with the "Whigs. Early in September he began to discuss 
pointedly the Nullification meetings in South Carolina ad- 
dressed by "Mr. Calhoun's leading partisans," warning that 
the sinister doctrine was "subversive of the Union," and that 
"by forcing a clash between the Government and South 
Carolina, Calhoun hopes to arouse the sympathy of the en- 
tire South." And he continued with a prescience that is now 
startling: "The Vice-President, as his prospect closes upon 
the elevated honors of the Federal Government, is exerting 
all his influence to place South Carolina in a position which 
shall compel the other Southern States to unite in a new 
system, or confederacy, which may open new views to his 
ambition." ''■ 

Thus, burning all bridges as far as the Nullifiers were 
concerned, the Jacksonian leaders, in the interest of the 
President, concentrated on capitalizing their connection with 
the Whigs and the Bank. When Whig and Bank papers 
warmly recommended the "Telegraph" to the patronage of 
the Clay supporters, Blair gave the recommendation public- 
ity, with the suggestion that "that paper is the open advo- 
cate of Calhoun and Nullification." Thus he forced the 
coalition into the open. "Are not the Bank party turning 
to the Nullifiers?" he asked. "If not, why do they circulate 
the extra of Duff Green which is devoted to Nullification?"^ 
Thus, by boldly repudiating and defying the Nullification 
element and Calhoun, the Jackson leaders more than neutral- 
ized any benefit that Clay and the Whigs might receive 
from their sympathy and support. 

1 Globe. Aug. 29, 1832. . " Ibid., Sept. 5, 1832. / Ibid., Sept. 7, 1832. 



234 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

m 

But more important to Clay than the attitude of the NuIIi- 
fiers was that of the Anti-Masons. Strangely enough, he had, 
at first, looked upon the growing movement, not only with 
complacency, but with approval. After the failure of the new 
party in New York in 1830, he had written to a friend: "If 
they had been successful they would probably have brought 
out an Anti-Masonic candidate for President. Still, if I had 
been in New York, I should have given my suffrage to 
Granger.^ I will not trouble you with the reasons." ^ In 
the same letter, however, he expresses the opinion that such 
strength as the proscriptive party might muster would ul- 
timately go to the Whigs, in general, and himself in particu- 
lar, because "it is in conformity with the general nature of 
minorities," when they have no candidate of their own, to 
support the strongest opposition party. Then, too, they were 
protectionists, had been abused by Van Buren's organization 
in New York, "and General Jackson has, as they think, per- 
secuted them." At any rate, wrote the intriguing politician, 
"there is no occasion for our friends to attack them." 

But a new light broke for Clay when, in the spring of 1831, 
the Anti-Masons called a national convention, to meet two 
months before the Whigs'. His close friends became appre- 
hensive. The sounding of the Anti-Masons disclosed no 
Clay sentiment. Quite the contrary. Much distressed at 
this revelation, one of the leaders of the movement urged 
him to exert his well-known powers of conciliation.^ By the 
latter part of June he had concluded that the new party 
might not prove so advantageous after all. Writing to his 
bosom friend, Francis Brooke, he found that "Anti-Masonry 
seems to be the only difficulty now in the way of success, both 

^ Anti-Mason candidate for Governor. 

2 Clay to Bailbache. Clay's Works, iv, 289. 

« Richard Rush to Clay, Clay's Worku, iv, 299. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 235 

in Pennsylvania and New York." ^ By the middle of July he 
was convinced that "it would be politic to leave the Jackson 
party exclusively to abuse the Antis." ^ A few days later he 
had concluded that "the policy of the Antis is to force us to 
their support," and that "ours should be to win them to 
ours." ^ 

As the time for the convention approached, the Antis were 
split on Clay, a small portion wishing the nomination of 
one who would later withdraw in his favor, but the majority 
hoping for the nomination of one who would be acceptable to 
the Whigs in their convention two months later. The prob- 
lem was finally solved by the nomination of William Wirt. 

That this brilliant man would have scorned the honor on 
any other theory than that his nomination would be accept- 
able to both the Whigs and Clay, with whom he had served 
in the Cabinet, and for whom he entertained an affection, is 
shown in his correspondence.^ But, while resting at Ashland 
and still ignorant of the convention's action. Clay was writ- 
ing to Brooke that "if the alternative is between Andrew 
Jackson and an Anti-Masonic candidate with his exclusive 
prescriptive principles, I should be embarrassed in the 
choice." ^ 

In the interval between the two conventions, the Anti- 
Masons clung desperately to the hope that Clay would do 
violence to his dominating, domineering disposition by sacri- 
ficing himself. He was an intimate friend of Wirt's. Their 
views on fundamentals were alike. With Wirt elected. Clay 
would be the power behind the throne. With a divided 
opposition, Jackson's election would be inevitable, and Clay 
hated him with a consuming hate. For identical reasons the 
Whigs hoped that, on the nomination of Clay, Wirt would re- 
tire in his favor. As the Whig convention approached, Wirt 
abandoned all hope of his own nomination. "There seems 

1 Clay's Works, iv, 304, 2 Ibid., 306. s jf^id,, 307-08. 

* See Kennedy's Ldfe of Wirt. ^ Clay's Works, iv, 316. 



r 



236 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

to be no doubt of Mr. Clay's nomination in the convention 
next week," he wrote to Judge Carr. " So be it. In a personal 
point of view I shall feel that I have made a lucky escape." ^ 
After the nomination of Clay, it was the ardent wish of Wirt 
to withdraw. His intimations to his party's leaders only 
brought the assurance that were the party dissolved there 
"were not enough Clay men among them to touch New York 
or Pennsylvania, nor consequently to elect Mr. Clay," and he 
was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that "there [was] 
no more chance for Mr. Clay with the Anti-Masons than 
for the Pope of Rome." ^ But the absurdity of his situation i 
annoyed him, and he was soon wishing for "a little villa in ; 
Florida, or somewhere else, to retire to, and beguile the 
painful hours, as Cicero did, in writing essays." i 

If he remained in the field, it was because Henry Clay pre- | 
f erred it. The relations of the ostensible rivals were close | 
and confidential throughout the campaign. Clay feared that ' 
Wirt's withdrawal would be ascribed to his influence, and [ 
would intensify the Anti-Masonic feeling against him. Then, i 
again, the Whig board of strategy planned to deprive Jackson 
of the electoral vote of New York and Pennsylvania through i! 
an ingenious combination of the two opposition parties in 
those States. In New York the proscriptive party, meeting ' 
first, endorsed its national nominees, and nominated leaders i 
of their own for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor. With 
great cunning they selected an electoral ticket, including 
Chancellor Kent, an idolater of Clay. The Whigs followed, 
and accepted the Anti-Masonic ticket, and thus the Opposi- 
tion was consolidated in the Empire State. There was no 
mystery as to the intent in regard to the State ticket — it \ 
was to have the united support of both parties. The weak- 
ness, with the public, was the absence of any indication as 
to the intended disposal of the electoral vote. The plan of the 
conspirators was to throw the electoral votes to Wirt pro- 

1 Kennedy's Life of Wirt, ii. 314. * Ibid.. 318. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 237 

vided there was a possibility of his election, or no possibility of 
the election of either Wirt or Clay; and for Clay in the event 
Wirt could not win and the Whig nominee could with the 
electoral vote of New York.^ The plan met with the hearty 
approval of Clay, who entertained high hopes of its success 
in depriving Jackson of the electoral vote upon which his 
election depended. ^ Thus, before the campaign had fairly 
started, the politicians of these two parties were working in 
close cooperation with a complete understanding, while the 
rank and file of both parties were left entirely in the dark. 
Wirt, with no faith in the coalition, was doing nothing to 
advance his candidacy.^ Thus the nominee of one party was 
secretly planning to deliver the prize to the man his own party 
had repudiated. Not only did he write no letters to advance 
his party's cause, but he "refused to answer whenever such 
answers could be interpreted as canvassing for office." ^ 

Meanwhile the Jacksonians were merely amused at these 
intrigues of the old school politicians. The secret of their 
strength, here as always, was in their daring. Not only did 
they ignore the Anti-Masons and refuse to conciliate them, 
but they cast them off as completely as they had the Nulli- 
fiers. The highest member of the Masonic order in America 
was at the head of Jackson's Cabinet, and John Quincy 
Adams gave the utmost publicity to the fact by addressing 
his attacks on Masonry to Edward Livingston. Jackson 
himself sought and found an opportunity to go on record 
against the proscriptive hysteria. In this manner the Jack- 
sonian managers rallied the Masons to their banner, and 
they held in their hands the ammunition with which to blow 
to atoms the plan of the coalition leaders to deliver the rank 
and file of the enemies of Masonry to Clay. 

Early in October Blair published in the "Globe/* without 

^ William H. Seward's Autobiography, 100. 

2 Clay to Brooke, Clay's Works, iv, 339. 

2 Wirt to Carr, Kennedy's Life of Wirt, ii. 328-29. 

* Kennedy's Life of Wirt, ii, 331. 



238 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

comment, Clay's manly letter to some Anti-Masons in In- 
diana refusing to be drawn into sectarian quarrels. "If a 
President of the United States . . . were to employ his offi- 
cial power to sustain, or to abolish, or to advance the inter- 
est of Masonry or Anti-Masonry," he had written, "it would 
be an act of usurpation and tyranny." ^ That was enough. 
The Democratic press of the country, taking the cue from 
the "Globe," reproduced the letter, and thus the rank and 
file of the party everywhere was strengthened in its deter- 
mination not to support its author. 

While Clay was intriguing with the Nullifiers and the Anti- 
Masons, the Democrats were audaciously denouncing both, 
and were gaining rather than losing by their temerity. 

IV 

There was but one issue — and that the Bank. Clay had 
made it the issue with the officers of the institution and their 
allied business interests; the clever leaders of the Jackson 
forces made it an issue with the masses of the people, who 
had always looked with suspicion and dislike upon the power- 
ful financial institution. ^ And then, perhaps, the "Emperor 
Nicholas" bitterly regretted having yielded to the blandish- 
ments of Clay. If he had not considered the cost in money 
to the institution when he yielded, Clay understood it as 
well as Webster. They knew that a fight against the "weak 
old man," as they foolishly called Jackson, would be "no 
holiday affair." Satisfied of the support of the business 
element, they had calculated the cost of reaching the people 
generally — and they had the work of Biddle cut out for 
him.^ And almost immediately, Biddle was as deeply in- 
volved as Clay himself. 

The campaign plans of the two parties differed, since their i 
special appeals were to different elements. The Clay men 

• Globe, Oct. 8, 1832. * McMaster, iv, 14,5. 

* Van Buren's Political Parties, 323. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 239 

relied on the distribution, with Bank money, of the printed 
speeches of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, of tracts and 
pamphlets. These, falling into the hands of the masses, were 
thrown aside. They were sympathetically perused by the 
bankers, merchants, manufacturers, preachers, professors, 
and lawyers who were in no need of conversion. ^ The Bank 
made desperate efforts to win to its support the press of the 
larger cities and towns. It was notoriously willing to prove 
its appreciation of such support with the coin of the realm. ^ 
That Webb's paper had been won over with Bank money 
was common knowledge after the congressional investigation, 
and Amos Kendall, in the "Globe," charged that the "Eve- 
ning Post " had been " approached," and that the " Standard " 
of Philadelphia had been offered five hundred dollars and a 
new set of type, and the inducement had been increased by 
five hundred dollars two days later. 

Thoroughly frightened, Biddle spent lavishly for the print- 
ing and distribution of speeches and articles. Mailing the 
president of the Kentucky Bank ^ Webster's speech on the 
Veto, and an article reviewing the Message, he instructed 
that these, "as well as Mr. Clay's & Mr. E wing's speeches on 
the same subject," be "printed and dispersed." ^ More than 
$80,000 — an enormous sum for those days — was spent by 
the Bank under the head of "stationery and printing" during 
the period of the campaign. Thousands of friendly newspa- 
pers were bought in bulk and scattered broadcast, and Blair 
announced the discovery that "about four bushels of the 
* Extra Telegraph' is sent to New York to a single individual 
for distribution." ^ An analysis of Benton's speech and a 
reply was printed in pamphlet form, and thousands flooded 
the country and burdened the mails. 

But more sinister still was the appearance, for the first 

* McMaster, iv, 146. 

^ See Biddle to James Hunter, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 127. 

' John Tilford. * Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 197. 

6 Globe, Sept. 26, 1832. 



240 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

time in American politics, of the weapons of intimidation and 
coercion. In New Orleans a bank commenced discounting 
four months' paper at eight per centum — "because of the 
veto." An advertisement appeared in a Cincinnati paper 
oifering $2.50 per hundred for pork if Clay should be elected, 
$1.50 if Jackson won — a bribe of one dollar a head on each 
hundred pounds of pork. From Brownsville, Pennsylvania, 
went forth the disturbing report that "a large manufacturer 
has discharged all his hands, and others have given notice to 
do so," and that "not a single steam boat will be built this 
season at Wheeling, Pittsburg or Louisville." From Balti- 
more: "A great many mechanics are thrown out of employ- 
ment by the stoppage of building. The prospect ahead is 
that we shall have a very distressing winter." And so the 
work went on, with the Bank and its political champions 
holding the sword of Damocles over the heads of the masses 
who dared to vote for Jackson.^ Jackson was held before the 
conservative and timid as rash, dangerous, destructive. 
Webster's State convention speech at Worcester, expanding 
on the unfortunate sentence from the Veto Message as to 
the finality of Supreme Court decisions, was given general 
circulation. Even the brilliant Ritchie, of the "Richmond 
Enquirer, " lived in constant terror of some rash act of Jack- 
son's that would wreck the country.^ 

For the benefit of the ardent Jacksonians who disliked and 
distrusted Van Buren, the nominee for Vice-President, the 
Whig and Bank press gravely quoted some mysterious "Phil- 
adelphian " to whom Jackson had said, " with his own lips," 
that a reelection would satisfy him as a vindication, and that 
he would resign and go home, leaving Van Buren in the Presi- 
dency. Even the "National Intelligencer" referred to the 
rumor as "the disclosure of an important fact . . . going to 
confirm our own impressions." And Blair had been forced to 
notice and denounce the story with the comment that "we 

t * Benton's Thirty Years' View, i, 281. « Van Buren's Political Parties, 323. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 241 

had always thought Simpson the most depraved of all the 
miscreants purchased by the Bank, but certainly now Gales ^ 
deserves to be put below him." ^ Earlier in the campaign 
the Whigs had attempted to serve the same purpose by cir- 
culating alarming reports regarding Jackson's health. And 
Blair, in denouncing this canard, announced that the Presi- 
dent "receives from 50 to 100 persons daily, is incessantly 
engaged in the despatch of the duties of his office, and joins 
regularly at table his large dinner parties of from 40 to 50 per- 
sons twice a week." ^ 

For the benefit of the preachers, teachers, and moral forces, 
the old stories of Jackson's bloodthirstiness were revived, 
apropos of the attack by Sam Houston on a member of Con- 
gress. At first the President had merely instigated the as- 
sault — and then the imaginative Whig scribes worked out a 
bloodcurdling, circumstantial story. After the brutal attack, 
the swaggering Houston had met Postmaster-General Barry 
at the theater, and the two had talked it over at the theater 
bar, and, after being congratulated by the Cabinet member, 
he had called on Jackson and been heartily commended for 
his act. 

Thus the Wliigs used every weapon that came into their 
hands — money, subsidized and bought papers, the hostility 
to Masonry, the hate of the Nullifiers, the fear of Van Buren, 
intimidation, coercion, and slander. And something com- 
paratively new to politics — the cartoon — soon became a 
feature of the fight. Here the Democrats were at a disad- 
vantage, and the pictorial editorials that have come down to 
us are largely anti- Jackson. Here we find the President pic- 
tured as a raving maniac, as Don Quixote tilting at the pillars 
of the splendid marble bank building in Philadelphia, as a 
burglar attempting to force the bank doors with a battering 
ram, while the most popular cartoon among the friends of 

* Editor of the Intelligencer. 
. 2 Globe. Sept. 15. 1832. 3 ni^^^ Peb, j^ jgag. 



242 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Clay pictured Jackson receiving a crown from Van Buren 
and a scepter from the Devil. ^ 

V 

But all the while the consummate politicians of the Jackson 
party were reaching and arousing the masses. Long before 
the opening of the campaign, Amos Kendall, Lewis, Hill, 
and Blair were cunningly appealing to the interests, the prej- 
udices, and the hero worship of the voters of the cornfield 
and the village. These forerunners of the modern politician 
were keenly appreciative of the fact that between 1824 and 
1832 a great body of voters, previously proscribed because of 
their poverty and lack of property, had been newly enfran- 
chised. With the Whigs these were non-existent. The jour- 
nalistic training of Kendall, Hill, and Blair pointed to the 
press as the surest way to reach the masses with their propa- 
ganda. The old-fashioned politician still affected a contempt 
for the press, and particularly for the little struggling papers 
of the country. The genius of Kendall immediately seized 
upon these, and, long before the campaign began, the sallow, 
prematurely gray young man of mystery, shut up in his petty 
oflSce in the Treasury, was busy night and day, and espe- 
cially at night, preparing articles and editorials laudatory 
of the Jackson policies, denunciatory of the Opposition, and 
these, sent to editors all over the country, were printed as 
their own. Thus the followers of Jackson in every nook and 
corner of the country were constantly supplied with ammu- 
nition in the shape of arguments they could comprehend and 
assimilate. 

The center and soul of the Democratic organization was 
the office of the "Globe." Among the papers of national 
reputation, but two others were supporting Jackson, the 
"New Hampshire Patriot" of " Ike " Hill, and Van Buren's 

^ Parton's Jackson, iii, 423; McMaster, iv, 147. Some of these cartoons may be 
Been at the Congressional Library. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 243 

organ, the "Albany Argus." But the "Globe" was equal to 
the demand upon it. Doubling the number of issues, the 
ferociously partisan Blair sat in the oflSce writing feverishly, 
with Kendall gliding in and out with copy. Both possessed 
a genius for controversy. Both had mastered a style com- 
bining literary qualities, attractive to the educated, with 
the " pep" and " punch " that impressed, interested, delighted, 
the multitude. Blair dipped his pen in vitriol. In satire and 
sarcasm he had few equals. He was no parlor warrior, and 
he struck resounding blows like a boiler-maker. And he 
wrote in a flowing style that, at times, approached real elo- 
quence. Having the average man in mind, his editorials, 
filling the greater part of the paper, were concise and brief. 
When language seemed weak, he resorted to italics. The 
longer and more sustained argumentative articles were writ- 
ten by the more brilliant Kendall. Through July, August, 
September, and October he wrote a series of articles on "The 
Bank and the Veto," beginning in an argumentative vein, 
and gradually growing personal until he was devoting one 
issue to the financial connections between the Bank and 
Duff Green, another to similar connections of Webb, of the 
"Courier and Enquirer," and another to Gales, of the "In- 
telligencer." 

Infuriated by the gibes, taunts, and attacks, the Whigs 
charged that the "Globe" was being distributed gratuitously 
— the business manager replied with an affidavit as to the 
legitimacy of its circulation.^ News of the deepest import 
was crowded out by the exigencies of the campaign, and 
with the cholera scourge taking a heavy toll of lives in Wash- 
ington, the only mention of it in the "Globe" was in the 
official reports of the Board of Health. But there was room 
for columns of quotations from Democratic papers on the 
Veto, all striking the exultant key — "The Monster is De- 
stroyed." 

» Globe, Sept. 26, 1832, affidavit of John C. Rives. 



244 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Only the persistent hammering of the Whigs on the un- 
fortunate sentence of the Veto Message caused acute distress 
in Democratic circles. Webster's Worcester speech was 
annoying. Here a sneer, there a gibe in the "Globe," but 
sneers and gibes did not quite satisfy the editor, who finally 
made a laborious effort to explain,^ and, finding the effort 
tame, Blair countercharged with the publication of Clay's 
bitter anti-Bank speech of 1811 with appropriate comments 
upon it from the Jacksonian papers of the country. 

As the campaign approached the end, Blair stressed the 
theory that the real fight was between Jackson and the Bank, 
with Clay a mere pawn in the game. "We see," he wrote, 
"the most profligate apostasies invited and applauded — the 
grossest misrepresentations circulated — the worst forgeries 
committed — open briberies practiced, and all for what.?^ 
Not avowedly to elect Henry Clay or William Wirt, but any 
' available candidate ' ^ — in other words, any candidate with 
whom, in the end, the Bank directors can make the best 
bargain." ^ And a week later, under the caption, "The 
Gold," Blair announces that through private advices "we 
learn that certain heavy trunks, securely hooped with iron, 
have arrived at Lexington ^ from the East." ^ Such was the 
character of the publicity with which the Jacksonians ap- 
pealed to the masses of the people. 

But the practical minds of the leaders of the Kitchen Cabi- 
net were not content with creating public opinion — they 
systematically organized and directed it. In every commu- 
nity, no matter how obscure, some Jackson leader, with a 
genius for organization work, was busy welding the Jackson 
forces into a solid mass. Here Major Lewis took charge. He 
anticipated the card-index system of the modern politicians. 
There was scarcely a county in the country in which he did 
not know the precise man or men upon whom absolute reli- 

1 Globe, July, 28, 1832. ^ Duff Green's expression. 

» Globe, Oct. 17, 1832. * Clay's home. » Qioig^ Qct. 23, 1832. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 245 

ance could be placed. And *' Ike " Hill, now a United States 
Senator, made an extensive organizing tour through Ohio and 
Pennsylvania in early August. 

In both publicity and organization, the greater part of the 
ability and all the genius was with Jackson. 

VI 

The Jacksonians depended also to a greater extent than the 
Opposition on appeals to the people, face to face. A crea- 
ture of another world, looking down from the skies upon the 
United States in the late summer and autumn of 1832, would 
have concluded that its people moved about in enormous 
processions on horseback, with waving flags, branches and 
banners. Great meetings were held in groves, addressed by 
fiery orators, furiously denouncing "The Monster" and the 
"Corporation" and calling upon the people to "stand by 
the Hero." Men left their homes, bade farewell to their fam- 
ilies as though enlisting for a war, and rode from one meet- 
ing to another for weeks at a time.^ Nor was this hysterical 
enthusiasm confined to the more primitive sections of the 
country. A French traveler sojourning in New York City 
was profoundly impressed by a Jackson parade there. 
"It was nearly a mile long," he wrote. "The Democrats 
marched in good order to the glare of torches; the banners 
were more numerous than I have ever seen in any re- 
ligious festival; all were in transparency on account of the 
darkness. On some were inscribed the names of Demo- 
cratic societies or sections; others bore imprecations against 
the Bank of the United States. Nick Biddle and Old Nick 
here figured largely. . . . From farther than the eye could 
reach came marching on the Democrats. The procession 
stopped before the houses of the Jackson men to fill the air 
with cheers, and halted at the door of the leaders of the 
opposition to give three, six or nine groans. These scenes 

* Sargent's Public Men and Events, i, 248. 



246 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

belong to history and partake of the grand; they are the 
episodes of a wondrous epic which will bequeath a lasting 
memory to posterity." ^ 

And into these amazing demonstrations the campaign 
glee club, also new to American politics, entered, to play a 
conspicuous part, with pretty girls, and children gayly dressed, 
singing round the hickory poles that were raised wherever 
there were idolaters of Jackson. And so they sang: 

"Here's a health to the heroes who fought 
And conquered in Liberty's cause; 
Here 's health to Old Andy who could not be bought 
To favor aristocrat laws. 
Hurrah for the Roman-like Chief — 

4 

He never missed fire at all; 

But ever when called to his country's relief 

Had a ready picked flint and a ball. 

"Hurrah for the Hickory tree 
From the mountain tops down to the sea. 
It shall wave o'er the grave of the Tory and knave. 
And shelter the honest and free." ^ 

Even where the "Whigs were strongest, the militant Demo- 
crats poured forth in defiant demonstrations. When Jack- 
son, returning to Washington from the Hermitage in the 
closing days of the campaign, approached Lexington, the 
home of his rival, a multitude streamed down the road five 
miles to meet him, with over a thousand on horseback and in 
carriages, and before he reached his lodging the throng ex- 
tended back two miles along the road "with green hickory 
bushes waving like bright banners in a breeze." ' 

It was inevitable that in such a campaign personalities 
should intrude. In the winter of 1831-32, while Congress 
was in session, Jackson took advantage of the presence of Dr. 
Harris, an eminent Philadelphia surgeon, to have the bullet 
from Benton's pistol, long lodged in his shoulder, removed. 

^ M. Chevalier, as quoted by Sargent, Public Men and Events, i, 219. 
2 From the Globe. * Description in the Globe. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 247 

When the surgeon appeared at the White House, he was en- 
gaged with company, but excused himself with the explana- 
tion that he would have to submit to an operation; and a few 
hours later he reappeared among his friends with his arm in 
a sling. "Precisely," wrote Blair, "as he had appeared with 
it in battle among the enemies of his country." ^ This gave 
the Whigs their cue, and their press teemed with references 
to the "disgusting affair" in which the shot had been fired. 
And Blair himself was able to retaliate in kind with the story 
of a wound received by Clay in a personal conflict. "He 
was taken to a kind friend's house," he wrote, "he was 
treated with the utmost tenderness and courtesy by that 
friend's wife and family, and while enjoying their hospitality, 
he amused himself ... by winning the money of his kind 
host at Brag." 

If Jackson was a brawler, it was given out thus that Clay 
was not only a brawler, but a gambler and an ingrate. Both 
stories made their way through the country. ^ 

If the cholera was not of sufficient importance for the news 
columns of the party press, it was rich in suggestion to the 
politicians. The Dutch Synod requested Jackson to set a 
day aside for prayer. He replied that he had faith in the 
eificacy of prayer, but that the special day to be set aside 
should be designated by the State authorities. Whereupon 
Clay arose to offer a resolution in the Senate setting a day 
aside and fixing the day. Aha, cried Blair, he wants a veto 
on a religious subject. "It is not the cholera that makes 
them so pious; it is the hope to steal a march on the old Hero. 
. . . What whited sepulchers some of these partisan leaders 
are!" he wrote. ^ 

And when, a little later, the "Pittsburgh Statesman," a 
Clay paper, suggested that "the only effectual cure, under 
existing circumstances, for genuine Jacksonism is the equally 
genuine Asiatic Spasmodic Cholera," the "Troy Budget," 

1 Globe, Jan. 14, 1832. « Ibid., Jan. 18, 1832. » Ibid., July 21, 1832. 



248 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

supporting Jackson, was not surprised at "such political de- 
pravity," coming from the " editorial slanderers and ruthless 
murderers of Mrs. Jackson." And "Ike" Hill, in the "New 
Hampshire Patriot," was reminded that Clay himself had 
prayed "for war, pestilence and famine" in preference to the 
reelection of Jackson. When the President left the capital for 
the Hermitage, the "Troy Sentinel," Whig, with its eye on 
the church vote, announced with emphasis that he had left 
Washington "at eight o'clock on Sunday morning." Blair, 
denouncing the story as "a lie," declared that "he did not 
leave the city until Monday morning and spent the Sabbath 
in religious duties as usual." When " Ike " Hill, speaking at 
a complimentary dinner at the Eagle Coffee House, in Con- 
cord, assailed Clay and Senator John Holmes, and referred 
to some Senators as "low and blackguard," the "National 
Intelligencer" protested, and Blair replied with a description 
of Holmes as a "besotted Senator who had indulged in 
indecent and ribald slang throughout the session," and as 
one given to "low buffoonery" — the "mere Thersites of the 
Senate." ^ Charges of impropriety touching on the personal 
integrity of political leaders were commonplace. The 
"Globe," centering its fire upon the activities of the Bank, 
charged it with subsidizing and seducing the press by paying 
for the publication of political speeches at advertising rates. ^ 
"Every press in Philadelphia," it said, "is closed by its in- 
fluence, against the admission of anything unfavorable to its 
pretensions. The 'Mechanics' Free Press' broke ground 
against it in conformity with the principles of its party, 
when lo! a shower of gold, amounting to $1700 for publishing 
Mr. McDufEe's report, silenced it, and for good reasons, 
doubtless, it has ever since held its peace about the Bank." 
And the Whig press was equally shocked to find that officers 

1 Globe, Aug. 22, 1832. The Globe published Hill's speech in ftill, the only one thii.9 
noticed in the campaign except Forsyth's tariff speech attacking Clay, and C. K. 
Ingersoll's tribute to Jackson at Philadelphia. 

* That this was done is disclosed in the Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 249 

high in the Government were sending the "Globe" all over 
the country under their official frank. "A lie!" screamed 
Blair. And so the battle of personalities went on. From 
Hill's "New Hampshire Patriot" came the resurrection of 
the long-discredited "bargain" story against Clay. 

Meanwhile, what had become of the candidates and what 
were their feelings as to the prospects? While scarcely due 
to the strain of the campaign, all three, Jackson, Clay, and 
Wirt, were threatened with serious illness. As we have seen, 
Clay was threatened with paralysis about the time of his 
retirement from the Cabinet. During the summer and au- 
tumn of 1832 the old trouble returned. His friend, Brooke, 
who became concerned over his health, urged him to caution, 
and Clay, much moved by his friend's solicitude, promised 
to be more careful of his diet, to abstain from wine, and 
to reduce his consumption of tobacco to "one form." ^ At 
times, during the summer session, he had been forced to leave 
Washington for a brief period of rest at his friend's home at 
St. Julien, Virginia; and as soon as Congress adjourned, he 
hastened to White Sulphur Springs for two weeks in hope of 
relief from the waters. Skeptical at first of his election, his 
confidence increased until he and Webster were exchanging 
letters of congratulation on its certainty. 

Wirt, who had a serious attack, and was in a weakened 
condition, was forced by his physician to leave Baltimore, 
rather than take a chance with the cholera. After a brief 
sojourn at Bedford Springs, he went with his family to Berk- 
ley Springs where he remained through September. Here, 
with no thought of his own election, but with ardent hopes 
for Clay, he ignored the clamor of the campaign. Riding and 
lounging about the grounds during the day, regaling com- 
pany with ghost stories in the evening, he bore no resemblance 
to a presidential candidate.^ 

Soon after Congress adjourned, the scourge reached Wash- 

1 Clay's Works, iv, 337. 2 Life of Wirt. 11, 378. 



250 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ington, taking heavy toll of the Irish and Swedish laborers 
engaged in the first macadamizing of Pennsylvania Avenue, 
and spreading rapidly from the poorer parts to the White 
House section. Because of Jackson's weakened condition, 
his physicians insisted that he spend three months at the 
Hermitage, and near the middle of August, accompanied 
part of the way by Amos Kendall, Frank Blair, " Ike " Hill, 
Major Lewis, Lewis Cass, and Benton, he left the sweltering 
and infected capital and went down the Ohio. He was in 
high glee. Never for a moment had he doubted the result 
of the election. During the congressional fight over the re- 
charter bill he had not punished those who had withheld, 
their support by denying them patronage, except in the case 
of his most bitter foes. Just before the vote in the House, 
an Ohio Representative solicited an appointment for a con- 
stituent, and, upon being granted the favor, he explained that 
he thought it due Jackson for him to know that the favor was 
being granted a member who would vote for the Bank. 

"I can't help that, sir, but I already knew it. See here — • 
I can take a roll of the House and check off every Democrat 
who will vote for the Bank. In fact I have one here." 

Turning briskly, he produced it, and the Representative, 
running over the list, indicated one name as that of a man 
who would vote with Jackson. 

"How do you know?" demanded Jackson. 

When told that this Congressman had been so unmercifully 
berated by his constituents that he had felt compelled to 
change his tack, the old warrior smiled grimly. 

"He is a lucky fellow," he said, "to get the views of his 
constituents beforehand. There are several other Democrats 
in the House who will not get similar notice until next 
fall, sir." 1 

Nothing occurred after that incident to alter his opinion 
of the sentiment of the people. As Hill left the boat bearing 

1 This story was related by William Allen of Ohio to Buell, who uses it in his Lije 
oj Jackson. 



THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 251 

the presidential party down the Ohio, at Wlieeh'ng, Jackson 
said, as he clasped his hand: "Isaac, it'll be a walk. If our 
fellows did n't raise a finger from now on the thing would be 
just as well as done. In fact, Isaac, it's done now." 

That his friends shared his confidence we have ample evi- 
dence. Hill, writing to a friend, advised him to bet all he 
could on Pennsylvania and Ohio for Jackson — "not on 
stated majorities, but hang on to the general result." And 
he added frankly, "I am on the turf myself. Benton and 
his friends out West are picking up all they can get." John 
Van Buren, the son of Martin, and popularly known as 
"Prince John," made a small fortune with his ventures on 
the election, and Hone, commenting on the manner and 
appearance of Martin Van Buren, the nominee for Vice- 
President, thought it indicated a feeling of absolute security. 

The result was a notable victory for Jackson and his 
policies — an unmistakable rebuke to Clay. In electoral 
votes Jackson received 219, Clay 49, and Wirt 7, and the 
popular vote gave Jackson 124,392 over the combined 
strength of Clay and Wirt, thus proving the absurdity of 
Thurlow Weed's theory that if Clay had acquiesced in the 
wishes of the Anti-Masons he could have been elected. The 
only State carried by Wirt was Vermont — as he had pre- 
dicted. Clay carried Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecti- 
cut, Delaware, and Kentucky, and five out of the eight 
electoral votes of Maryland. All the other States went to 
Jackson but one — South Carolina, with childish petulance, 
threw its vote away at the behest of Calhoun. 

Nothing could have been more ominous than this action. 
Going entirely outside the regularly nominated candidates, 
and acting in conformity with the views of the Nullifying 
party, which insisted on placing the State outside the Union, 
she gave her vote to Governor Floyd of Virginia. And Jack- 
son, getting the returns, instantly caught the significance of 
the act, and girded his loins for a life-and-death struggle 
with Calhoun and Nullification. 



CHAPTER X 

THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 

I 

Callers at the Hermitage about the first of October were 
surprised to find Jackson's thoughts remote from the election. 
Instead of a jubilant politician, they found an old man 
frothing with fury over the news from South Carolina that 
the Nullifiers had won a majority of seats in the Legislature 
and were arranging for an early summoning of a Nullifica- 
tion Convention. His indignation was so intense that his 
friends were shocked at the ferocity of his mood. The crisis 
had not crept upon him unaware. With keen, far-seeing eyes 
he had watched its advance, hoping that something would 
intervene to divert his native State from its mad course, but 
determined, if the issue came, to crush it with an iron hand. 
His hatred of Calhoun had, by this time, become an obses- 
sion, and when he threatened to " hang every leader ... of 
that infatuated people, sir, by martial law, irrespective of his 
name, or political or social position," there was no doubt 
as to whom he referred.^ Taking no further interest in the 
election, he put the campaign behind him and hastened to the 
capital. Blair, the politician always, hurried to the White 
House with some papers relating to the election. After a 
hasty and perfunctory glance, Jackson returned them to the 
editor, with a "Thank you, sir," and launched into a denun- 
ciation of the Nullifiers. The date set for the Nullification 
Convention had just reached him. Even Blair, accustomed 
to his fits of temper, was startled. He was in the presence 
of a Jackson he had never seen or known before. "The 
lines in his face were hard drawn, his tones were full of 

* Letters to Hamilton, Reminucenccs, 231. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 253 

wrath and resentment. . . . Any one would have thought 
he was planning another great battle." ^ Even the an- 
nouncement of victory at the polls scarcely interested him. 
Blair and Kendall called with a table showing the electoral 
vote. Glancing at it indifferently for a moment, his face 
brightened. "The best thing about this, gentlemen, is that 
it strengthens my hands in this trouble." Such was the 
spirit with which Andrew Jackson faced the gravest crisis 
the Nation had yet known. 

Beginning with an intensely nationalistic spirit, ^ South 
Carolina commenced to veer about with the tariff of 1816, 
and every succeeding tariff measure had been a provocation. 
Two years before Jackson's inauguration, the "Brutus" ar- 
ticles on the "Usurpations of the Federal Government," 
eloquent, fiery, defiant of the "Monster of the North," had 
created a profound impression, commanding the adherence 
of McDuffie, the Mirabeau of the disaffected, Hamilton, 
Preston, and Chancellor William Harper, described by Hous- 
ton as "scarcely inferior to Calhoun as an exponent of meta- 
physical doctrines." ^ The principles of "Brutus" only 
awaited the authoritative sanction of Calhoun to place upon 
them the stamp of the State's approval. 

The tariff of 1828 was the last straw, and sedition was openly 
talked by the greater part of the South Carolina congressional 
delegation at the home of Senator Hayne. One week later, 
Calhoun, at his home at Fort Hill, finished his "Exposition," 
enunciating the principles of Nullification, which the com- 
mittee of seven of the State Legislature presented as its own. 
During the summer, politicians made numerous pilgrimages 
to Fort Hill for conferences, but not the scratch of a pen re- 
mains to indicate the character of the discussions. Calhoun 
was still "under cover." He was about to enter upon his 
second term in the Vice-Presidency, and his friends were 

^ Blair, as quoted by Buell. 

* See Houston's Nullification in South Carolina, 27-28. » Ibid., 70. 



254 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOEj 

looking forward to the Presidency in 1832. The world was tc 
wait awhile for the openly avowed views of the Master. 

With the publication of the "Exposition," the battk 
royal began, Cavalier against Cavalier, the Union cause' 
brilliantly led by the elegant Joel R. Poinsett. In the early; 
stages of the fight the Nullifiers did not scruple to represent 
Jackson as friendly to their cause. "I had supposed," wrote 
Jackson, in reply to a letter from Poinsett, "that every on© 
acquainted with me knew that I was opposed to the Nulli- 
fying doctrine, and my toast at the Jefferson dinner was 
sufficient evidence of that fact." ^ Having no reason, after 
that, to doubt Jackson's position, the Unionists invited 
Jackson to attend one of their public dinners, and he sent a 
letter settling beyond all possibility of dispute his position 
on Nullification. The Nullifiers, dining at a rival banquet, 
.and learning of the reading of the Jackson letter, reminded 
the writer that "old Waxhaw still stands where Jackson 
left it, and the old stock of '76 has not run out." After 
that the drama hurried to a climax. The tariff of 1832 was 
but oil on the flames. The fight was carried to the polls 
and Nullification won by a majority of 6000 out of 40,000 
votes cast. 

The most portentous feature of the campaign was the 
appearance in August of Calhoun's famous letter to Hamil- 
ton, decisively accepting as his own, and urging upon his peo- 
ple, the doctrine of Nullification. It was intended and timed 
to serve the purposes of the campaign. Unhappily Calhoun 
must ever remain more or less a steel engraving. His private 
life was carefully screened. Jefferson prowling among the 
brickmasons at the University, Jackson with his clay pipe 
on the veranda of the Hermitage, Webster among his cattle 
at Marshfield, Clay meditating speeches under the trees at 
Ashland, are possible of contact by future generations, but 
Calhoun at Fort Hill seems hopelessly remote and cannot be 

^ * Still6's Life and Services of Joel R. Poinsett. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 255 

visualized. He stalks upon the stage, a dramatic and im- 
pressive figure, and plays his public part, but no one is ad- 
mitted to the dressing-room. Thus all we know of the occa- 
sion of the preparation of the famous letter, which became 
the Magna Carta of the Nullifiers, is told in the letter itself.* 
The events of that summer and early autumn were intimately 
known to Jackson as he walked the grounds of the Hermit- 
age, and lingered mournfully about the tomb of his beloved 
Rachel. In the spring of 1830 the brilliant Poinsett, fresh 
from his mission to Mexico, had been shocked, on his return 
to the drawing-rooms of Charleston, to find sedition poured 
with the tea, and had hurried to Washington to be closeted 
with Jackson at the White House. Before he emerged, he had 
been designated by the President as his personal ambassador 
in South Carolina,^ and after calling upon Adams, in retire- 
ment, to tell him of his hopes and fears, ^ he made all haste 
home to combat, inch by inch, the growing madness, and 
prepared, if need be, to die with a musket in his hands. Dur- 
ing the intervening three years his confidential reports had 
kept Jackson in close touch with all the movements of the 
enemy, and the grim old warrior, reentering the White House 
on his return from Tennessee, entertained no illusions as to 
what he faced. 

Three days after Jackson reached Washington, the South 
Carolina Legislature fixed November 3d as the date for the 
Nullification Convention. Silently, but sternly, soldier- wise, 
the President was clearing the decks for action. The day he 
left the Hermitage the Collector of Customs in Charleston 
received instructions as to his course; on reaching the capital, 
the commander in charge of troops there was warned of pos- 
sible attempts to seize the forts; to his apprehensive friends 
he was sending reassuring messages. "I am well advised as 

* For this letter in full see Calhoun's Worka, or Jenkins's Life of Calhoun, 195-232. 
2 Poinsett's letter to Jackson, Oct. 23, 1830, Stille's Ldfe of Poinsett. 
' Adams's Memoirs, May 13, 1830. 



256 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

to the views and proceedings of the leading Nulhfiers," he 
wrote Hamilton on November 2d. " We are wide awake here. 
The Union will be preserved; rest assured of that."^ 
Five days later, Cass was ordering additional troops to Fort 
Moultrie, and Jackson was dispatching a secret emissary to 
Charleston, with instructions to communicate with Poinsett, 
and to report upon the conditions of the forts and the lengths 
to which the Nullifiers might go.^ The day preceding the 
meeting of the Nullification Convention, Cass ordered Gen- 
eral Scott to Charleston, with minute instructions.^ With 
Scott hurrying to South Carolina, the convention met, the 
Nullification Ordinance was passed, and February 1st was set 
as the day for it to go into operation. Three days after the 
convention adjourned, the Legislature met and passed laws 
to put the ordinance into effect. The Unionist Convention 
immediately met, denounced Nullification, and began to 
organize their forces for a possible armed conflict. 

Meanwhile Scott had performed his mission with a dis- 
cretion and sound judgment which called forth the commen- 
dation of Jackson.^ Five days before Congress met, five 
thousand stand of muskets with equipment had been ordered 
to Castle Pinckney, and a sloop of war with smaller vessels 
were on their way to Charleston Harbor.^ "The Union 
must be preserved, and its laws duly executed, but by proper 
MEANS," wrote the President to Poinsett. 

Thus, in this real crisis, the "law," the "Constitution," 
and "public opinion" were uppermost in the mind of the 
man generally described as reckless in the use of power. 
Long after the event, but while the contest was still on, he 
wrote to Poinsett of his regret at the failure of the Unionist 
Convention to memorialize Congress "to extend to you the 
guarantees of the Constitution, of a republican form of gov- 

^ Hamilton's Reminiscences, 247. 

* George Breathitt, brother of the Governor of Kentucky. 

» Smith's Life of Cass, 269-71. * Cass to Scott, Smith's Life of Cass. 

' Jackson to Poinsett, Still^'s Life of Poinsett. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 257 

ernment, stating the actual despotism which now controls 
the State." This, he explained, "would have placed your sit- 
uation before the whole nation, and filled the heart of every 
true lover of his country and its liberties with indignation." * 
While at work on his Proclamation, he wrote Hamilton in 
New York, urging that public opinion assert itself in an un- 
mistakable manner. "The crisis must be, and as far as my 

CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL POWERS AUTHORIZE, will be, met 

with energy and firmness. Hence the propriety of the 

PUBLIC voice being HEARD ; — AND IT OUGHT NOW TO BE 

SPOKEN IN A VOICE OF THUNDER." ^ Thus, wheu the gavel 
fell on the opening of the Congress, Jackson had the situa- 
tion well in hand, had perfected his plans for vigorous action 
within the limits of the Constitution and the laws, but still 
hoped, through the pressure of public opinion and the re- 
turning good sense of the Carolinians, it would be unneces- 
sary to resort to force. 

n 

On the opening day of the Congress the great Carolinian 
was not in his Senate seat, to which he had been immediately 
elected on his resignation from the Vice-Presidency, but 
public interest centered in it, nevertheless. The Jackson 
Message was awaited with keen anxiety. In its recommen- 
dation of a reduction of the tariff was easily recognized a 
conciliatory gesture toward the South Carolinians. Even 
his discussion of the crisis was temperate and unprovocative. 
No one listening to the Message could have had the slightest 
notion of what was taking place at that very hour in Jack- 
son's workroom in the White House. 

Even before the Congress met, Edward Livingston was at 
work preparing the Proclamation which was to thrill the 
country like a bugle blast, perpetuate the memory of Jack- 

1 Letter to Poinsett, Feb. 7, 1833, Life of Poinsett. 

2 Hamilton's Reminiscences, 248. 



258 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

son, and reflect glory on himself. It was no mere accident 
which led to the Selection of the Secretary of State for this 
task. His views on the integrity and perpetuity of the Union 
were intimately known to his chief; and it was a duty upon 
which Livingston could enter with all his heart. But the first 
draft of the Proclamation was written by Jackson in a frenzy 
of composition, so hurriedly that he scattered the pages over 
the table to let them dry. The general tenor of the document 
was therefore his. If the wording was Livingston's, the doc- 
ument breathed the soul of Andrew Jackson. During the 
period of its preparation, Jackson was in constant touch. 
He was thinking of nothing else. Thus, on the day his Mes- 
sage was read to Congress, the iron man was meditating his 
appeal to public opinion. It was almost midnight. In his 
room in the southeast corner of the mansion, he sat before 
the fireplace smoking his pipe — thinking. Bitter as he was 
against Calhoun and the leaders whom he felt had seduced 
the people of his native State, he felt an affection for the con- 
fused masses who had been deluded; and, while prepared, 
if need be, to strike with the military arm of the Government, 
he passionately hoped that this would not become necessary. 
Going over to the table on which always stood the picture 
of his Rachel, and the Bible to which she had been devoted, 
he wrote a conclusion to the Proclamation in the nature of a 
touching appeal to the patriotic memories of the South Caro- 
linians. Then he wrote to Livingston: "I submit the above 
as the conclusion of the Proclamation for your amendment 
and revision. Let it receive your best flight of eloquence, to 
strike to the heart, and speak to the feelings of my deluded 
countrymen of South Carolina." 

Three days later, the night again found Jackson obsessed 
with the preparation of the Proclamation. Livingston, in 
his writing, was sending it as he proceeded to the White 
House, where Major Donelson, the private secretary, was 
engaged in copying it for the printer. At four o'clock in the 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 259 

afternoon the Secretary of State had sent a number of sheets, 
and Donelson had finished copying and was waiting for 
more. Jackson was impatient of the delay. The Message 
having gone forth, he thought it important that it should be 
followed immediately by the Proclamation for the effect on 
South Carolina. Again he wrote to Livingston explaining 
the reason for his anxiety. The Secretary would therefore 
please send over at once, "sealed, by the bearer," such sheets 
as were completed, and the harassed Livingston complied. 
Under these conditions of pressure the immortal document 
was written.^ 

On the day Jackson gave this Proclamation to the Nation 
he made his last appeal. A letter written to Poinsett that 
day discloses a determination to move sternly and unhesi- 
tatingly to what he conceived to be his solemn duty. This 
letter breathed the spirit of the battle-field. The act of the 
Nullifiers was sheer treason. He had been assured that he 
would be sustained by Congress. "I will meet it [treason] at 
the threshold, and have the leaders arrested and arraigned 
for treason," he wrote. He was only waiting for the Acts 
of the Legislature "to make a communication to Congress, 
ask the means necessary to carry my Proclamation into 
complete effect, and by an exemplary punishment of those 
leaders for treason so unprovoked, put down this rebellion, 
and strengthen our Government both at home and abroad." 
The Unionists of South Carolina need not fear. In forty 
days he could have 50,000 men in the State, in forty more 
another 50,000. "How impotent," he wrote, "the threats of 
resistance with only a population of 250,000 whites, and nearly 
double that in blacks, with our ships in the port to aid in the 
execution of the laws!" ^ 

Thus hoping that necessity would not compel him to send 

' These letters, in possession of the Livingston family, were used by Hunt in his 
lAfe of Linngston. 

^ Stille's Life of Poinsett. 



2G0 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

armed forces, determined to meet the issue, however, as it 
might present itself, careful to observe all the constitutional 
and legal limitations of his power, enraged to fury against 
the leaders and eager to lay his hands on Calhoun, he gave the 
country the Proclamation which instantly wiped out party 
lines with most, and rallied the patriotic forces of the Union 
to his support. 

m 

At the time of the writing of the Proclamation, Andrew 
Jackson was sixty-six, and Edward Livingston sixty-nine 
years old, but it breathes the fire, the passion, the enthusi- 
asm, and the eloquence of impetuous youth. As an oration, 
it was to be treasured as a masterpiece; as a public document, 
it has taken its place alongside the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion as one of the greatest pronouncements of American his- 
tory. Its publication appealed to the Unionists of the country 
like a charge on the battle-field. To no one did it give 
keener pleasure than to Webster, who read it in New Jersey 
on his way to the capital. In Philadelphia he met Clay, and 
a friend of the latter explained Clay's plan of concessions to 
the Nullifiers through a new tariff of gradual reductions. 
The martial call of Jackson aroused the fighting blood within 
Webster, and Clay's game of politics repelled him. He has- 
tened to Washington determined to give his best blows for 
Jackson and the Administration.^ 

John Marshall, in gloomy mood, found in the Proclamation 
the elixir for his pessimism. ^ Justice Story, despite his deep- 
seated prejudice, could not withhold his commendation, 
coupled with an expression of strange surprise. "The Presi- 
dent's Proclamation is excellent," he wrote, "and contains 
the true principles of the Constitution ; but will he stand to 
it.?^ Will he not surrender all to the guidance of Virginia?"* 

^ Lodge's Life of Webster, 208. 2 Beveridge's John Marshall, iv, 570-73. 

' l/Ctter to Richard Peters, Life and Letters of Story, 11, 113. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 261 

Adams described it as a "blister plaster." ^ Among all his 
long-time political opponents, Clay alone withheld enthusi- 
astic commendation, with the comment that, "although 
there are some good things in it, there are some entirely 
too ultra for me." In truth, the man who would "rather 
be right than President" seized eagerly upon the President's 
patriotic position to curry favor with the extreme State- 
Rights men of the South. 

Thus we soon enter upon the party phase of the fight. The 
effect upon some of Jackson's State-Rights supporters was 
one of painful embarrassment. While the average Virginian 
had no sympathy with Nullification, he subscribed to the 
State-Rights doctrine and to the right of secession. The very 
point on which Clay cunningly and unscrupulously pounced 
was therefore the one which caused the greatest consterna- 
tion among the Administration Democrats of the Old Do- 
minion. It was to them that Clay was making his appeal. 
The Virginia Assembly, which had just unanimously elected 
W. C. Rives, a Jacksonian, to the Senate, instantly reversed 
itself by electing John Tyler, an enemy, to that body, to 
succeed Tazewell, who had resigned. W. S. Archer, writing 
to Cambreleng in New York, declared that it would be ridic- 
ulous to expect Virginia to endorse the Proclamation, ^ and 
Governor Floyd, who had received South Carolina's vote in 
the recent election, rejoiced to find "the poor unworthy dogs, 
Ritchie, Van Buren & Co. deserted." ^ To the momentarily 
embarrassed Ritchie, his cleverness pointed a way out. 
Penning a mild objection to some of the doctrinal points, he 
accepted it as primarily a denunciation of Nullification, and, 
as such, gave it the support of his great prestige and pen.^ 

Such was the position of many others among the Southern 
leaders of the Jackson party, but Ritchie found himself in a 
minority. John Tyler, never friendly to Jackson, now seized 

1 Memoirs, Dec. 25, 1832. 

« Ambler's Thomas Ritchie, 152. ^ jm^ t ibid., 15.S. 



'^ 



262 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD I 

upon the Proclamation as a pretext for pushing to the head 
of the Opposition. Writing heatedly to Tazewell of the "ser- 
vility" to party of many Southern statesmen supporting the 
President, he drew a gloomy picture of the future. The Proc- 
lamation, he thought, had "swept away all the barriers of 
the Constitution," had established "a consolidated mihtarv 
despotism." He " trembled " for South Carolina. "The war 
cry is up — rely upon it," he wrote. "The boast is that the 
President by stamping like another Pompey on the earth 
can raise a hundred thousand men." ^ 

It is significant of Whig hopes, that, when Tyler wrote and 
Ritchie was supporting the President, John Hampden Pleas- 
ants, the editor of the "Richmond Whig," and an intimate 
of Clay's, was denouncing the principles enunciated by 
Jackson and Livingston. ^ Resolutions were adopted by the 
Legislature denouncing both Nullification and the Proc- 
lamation. 

Nor was Jackson indifferent to the attitude Virginia might 
assume. He planned to isolate South Carolina, and he feared 
an alliance with Virginia more than with any other State. 
Wishing to reach the Virginians as speedily as possible, he 
called upon Lewis Cass to prepare a letter in the form of an 
appeal to be published in Ritchie's "Richmond Enquirer." 
Within a few days after the appearance of the Proclamation, 
Virginians were reading a letter described by Ritchie as from 
"one of the ablest men in the country." Making no defense 
of the tariff, but pointing out the impossibility of the radical 
changes demanded being made within the limited time al- 
lowed by the Carolina politicians, he suggested that "Virginia 
might interpose most efficaciously, and add another leaf to 
the wreath which adorns her civic chaplet/' if her Legislature 
would appoint a committee to proceed to South Carolina 
and "entreat her convention ... to recall its late steps, and 
at all events to delay her final action till another trial is made 

' Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 418. 2 Ibid., 451. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 263 

to reduce the tariff." ^ This was to lead, a little later, to the 
adoption of a similar plan. 

Strange as it may now seem, the position of Virginia pre- 
vented New York from endorsing the Proclamation unquali- 
fiedly, through her Legislature — and thereon hangs a tale 
of the political cunning of Martin Van Buren. In the Empire 
State the Proclamation had been received with enthusiasm. 
Even so bitter a partisan as Philip Hone poured forth his 
admiration and commendation on the pages of his diary. 
"As a composition, it is splendid," he wrote, "and will take 
its place in the archives of our country, and dwell in the 
memory of our citizens alongside of the Farewell Address. 
... I think Jackson's election may save the Union. If he is 
sincere in his Proclamation, he will put down this rebellion. 
Mr. Clay, pursuing the same measures, would not have been 
equally successful." ^ We have seen, in Jackson's letter to 
Hamilton, his desire that every agency of publicity should be 
employed to focus the sentiment against Nullification. The 
New York Legislature being then in session, Hamilton wrote 
leading men in Albany urging the passage of a commendatory 
resolution. In the absence of definite encouragement, he then 
wrote Van Buren, his political and personal friend, suggest- 
ing that he bring pressure to bear upon his friends in the 
Assembly. The letter was returned, opened, but unanswered, 
and Hamilton lost no time in writing of the incident to Jack- 
son, with the comment that "this unfriendly, nay offensive 
course, resulted from Van Buren's fear of offending the dom- 
inant political party in Virginia." ^ 

That Van Buren was deeply embarrassed by the doctrinal 
features of the Proclamation, if not by the possible effect 
upon his candidacy for the Presidency and his popularity 
among the Virginia politicians, has been admitted and ex- 
plained by himself.^ The document was delivered to him at 

1 Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 13, 1832. ^ Diary, Dec. 12, 1832. 

' Hamilton's Reminiscences, 250. * Van Buren's Autobiography, 545-53. 



264 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the home of a friend in Albany as the party was in the act of 
going in to dinner. Instantly his practiced eye caught the 
phrasing that would arouse the ire of the State-Rights ele- 
ment. The Whigs in Albany were just as keen, and pro- 
ceeded, with celerity, to take advantage. William H. Seward 
immediately offered a resolution in the State Senate to the 
effect that "the President of the United States . . . had ad- 
vanced the true principles upon which only the Constitution 
can be maintained and defended." With Van Buren on the 
ground, and with the Democrats in the majority, the Whigs 
hoped, not without reason, either to force the Jacksonians to 
accept the conclusions of the resolution, or to a rejection of 
the endorsement, which would be interpreted as a rupture 
of the relations of the President and Vice-President. The 
Democrats did neither — they postponed action. It was 
probably at this juncture that Van Buren received the letter 
from Hamilton and returned it unanswered. Realizing, how- 
ever, the fatality of non-action. Van Buren prepared a reso- 
lution, together with an elaborate and laborious report, 
taking issue with "the history given by the President of the 
formation of our Government," and calculated to satisfy 
the State-Rights men of Virginia. These were adopted, and 
sent to the White House with an explanation. Just what 
Jackson thought of it will never be known, for he filed the 
letter without a word of comment to his secretary, in whose 
presence it was read.^ Nor was the subject ever mentioned 
in future conversations between the two leaders. ^ That a 
copy was also sent to Rives and Ritchie in Virginia we may 
be sure. 

Such were the cross-currents of party politics at the time, 
with Jackson playing a bold and straight game, thinking solely 
of the Union, and Clay and Van Buren, rival candidates for 
the Presidency, pussyfooting and conciliating on a vital issue. 

* Van Buren's Autobiography, 553. 

' For Van Buren's report, see Autobiography, 550-52. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 265 

Meanwhile what was the effect in South Carolina? Senator 
Hayne, now Governor, met the challenge of the President in 
an able document, bitter in its defiance, which fired the fight- 
ing blood of the Nullifiers. Preston described it as "a docu- 
ment whose elegance of diction, elaborate and conclusive 
argument, just and clear constitutional exposition, confuted 
all the show of argument of the President's Proclamation." ^ 
Outside of Nullification circles, the bitterness of this counter- 
blast made a deep impression. Adams found it "full of bitter 
words," and, after reading it, sent it to James K. Polk, the 
Jackson leader in the House. ^ The Hayne defiance was 
echoed by the Nullifiers. The eloquent Preston, addressing a 
mass meeting in Charleston, declared that "there are 16,000 
back countrymen with arms in their hands and cockades 
in their hats, ready to march to our city at a moment's 
warning to defend us. ... I will pour down a torrent of volun- 
teers that will sweep the myrmidons of the tyrant from the 
soil of Carolina," ^ But Calhoun was disappointed with the 
Proclamation. He had hoped for an intemperate, ranting de- 
nunciation of the Carolinians that would heat their blood and 
put them on the march. The sober dignity of the document 
and its impressive appeal to the better natures of the people 
interfered with his plans. 

In the House of Representatives, the Carolinians were 
seething with wrath. The impassioned McDufiBe, according 
to Adams, "could not contain himself," and declared that 
"if Congress should approve the principles of that proclama- 
tion, the liberties of the country were gone forever." Where- 
upon Archer rose to suggest that a communication "would 
very shortly be received upon which the gentleman would 
have an opportunity to express his opinion without re- 
straint." ^ - 

1 Jervey's Robert Y. Eayne. 2 Memoirs, Dec. 26, 1832. 

^ March's Reminiscences oj Congress. 
* Adams's Memoirs, Dec. 14, 1832. 



266 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

rv 

The excitement over the Proclamation found Calhoun re- 
mote from the turmoil and in the midst of his family at Fort 
Hill. There he lingered to enjoy the Christmas festivities, 
and the day following he started to Washington to take his 
place in the Senate. There was much drama in this winter 
journey to the capital. One of his biographers has compared 
it to "that of Luther to attend the diet of Worms." ^ The 
public was convinced of the temper of Jackson and realized 
the possibilities when the lion in him was aroused. To some 
Calhoun's journey suggested a death march. Looked upon 
as the prime mover, the instigator, the leader of the seditious 
movement, many thought that he would be arrested on the 
charge of treason before he crossed the Virginia border. In- 
terest in his progress was intense, and even among those who 
abhorred the new doctrine there was no little sympathy for 
the grim, impeccably pure statesman who had the courage 
to beard the lion in his den. New Year's Day found him at 
Raleigh, where he rested. Here crowds gathered to welcome, 
or merely to observe him, and a public dinner was offered 
him by his admirers. This he politely declined. There was 
something of grandeur in the dignity of his demeanor. As 
he proceeded from town to town, his approach was announced 
and elaborate preparations were made for his reception, 
for both North Carolina and Virginia were devoted to State 
Rights, and not a few of their citizens sympathized with 
the Carolina doctrine, and looked upon secession as an in- 
evitable result of the crisis. Unlike the case of Burr, noth- 
ing personally sinister clung to him. His worst enemies con- 
ceded his honesty, and this was in his favor. Mrs. Bayard 
Smith, echoing the sentiment of the Washington drawing- 
rooms, found herself wondering, on Christmas Day, if all the 
"high soarings" of "one of the noblest and most generous 

1 Jenkins, 246. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 267 

spirits" were to end "in disappointment or humiliation or 
in blood." ^ That this friendly atmosphere, through which 
he moved, was reassuring to Calhoun, we may assume from 
his letter to his son on reaching the capital. Here he found 
"things better than anticipated" and that it was beginning 
to be "felt that we must succeed." 

On the day he took the oath and his seat in the Senate, 
the little semi-circular chamber was crowded with friends 
and foes, drawn by the dramatic features of the situation. 
Tall, erect, his face sternly set, his iron-gray hair brushed 
back, he walked into the chamber over which he had presided, 
slowly and^with a deliberation which seemed as studied as 
that of an actor upon the stage. When he took his seat, some 
Senators hastened to clasp his hand, but it was noticed that 
others, who had formerly been friendly, held back, deterred 
perhaps by the frown of the White House. At length the 
great scene — the taking of the oath. This he did in a rever- 
ential manner, and his voice was serious and solemn when 
he swore to support the Constitution which Jackson con- 
tended he had flagrantly violated.^ The leader of Nullifica- 
tion was in his seat. 

V 
The day after Calhoun started on his journey to the capital, 
the Verplanck Tariff Bill, sanctioned by the Administration, 
was introduced in the House. This measure, it was thought, 
might go a long way toward preventing any accession to the 
ranks of the Nullifiers in that it went far toward meeting the 
objections to the revenue laws. It was a rather radical meas- 
ure, providing for the immediate reduction of numerous 
duties, with further reductions a year later. The protection 
forces rallied at once for its defeat. Through all the parlia- 
mentary devices of delay, Jackson, keenly watching de- 
velopments through the reports of Lewis and Donelson, was 

* First Forty Years, Dec. 25, 1832. * March's Reminiscences of Congress. 



268 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

convinced that the Nullifiers were as much interested in 
its defeat as the protectionists. An "insulting and irritating, 
speech" of Wilde of Georgia he thought "instigated by the! 
Nullies, who wish no accommodation of the tariff." ^ Long| 
before it could be brought to a vote, it had been hammeredi 
beyond recognition by amendments and Jackson had lost 
interest in the reduction of the tariff, rather preferring first 
to whip Nullification without any preliminary concessions.! 

Meanwhile Jackson was awaiting developments before i 
submitting his Message to Congress asking additional powers 
to put down the heresy. Through the latter part of Decem- 
ber and the early part of January, Hayne was making openi 
preparations for an armed resistance. Poinsett, reporting! 
constantly, had abandoned hope of "putting down Nullifi- 
cation by moral force," and hoped that the "vain blusteringi 
of these mad-men" would not influence Congress on the- 
tariff, as "such a concession would confirm the power andi 
popularity of the Nullifiers." ^ He was anxious for the con-i 
test. "Is not raising, embodying, and marching men to op-i 
pose the laws of the United States an overt act of treason?"] 
he wrote the Unionist Congressman from Charleston, whO' 
still hoped that the crisis could be passed without re- 
course to the Federal army.^ Thus, early in January, Poin-i 
sett was anxious to have Federal troops sent into the State, 
while other Unionists still held back. In this controversy 
Jackson agreed with the conservatives that the Unionists of 
the State should first have an opportunity to demonstrate | 
their ability to handle the situation. 

On January 16th, Archer's promise to McDuffie was ful- 
filled, when Jackson laid all the facts relative to the crisis 
before Congress witli a request for authority to abolish or 
alter certain ports of entry, and to use the army to protect 
the officers in the discharge of their duties. He also asked for 

* Still^'s Life of Poinsett. ^ Letter to Jackson, StiI16's Life of Poinsett. 

* Poinsett to Drayton, Stille's Life of Poinsett. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 269 

the revival of the sixth section of the Act of March 3, 1815, and 
for a provision for the removal to the United States Circuit 
Court, without copy of the record, of any suit brought in the 
State courts against any individual for an act performed 
under the laws of the United States. A grim touch was added 
in the request for authorization for marshals to make pro- 
vision for keeping prisoners. 

Very late on the night of the day the Message was sub- 
mitted, Jackson, worn out and wretched from a bad cold, 
sat in his room writing to Poinsett. The Message had been 
read. Calhoun, "agitated and confused," had "let off a 
little of his ire" against the President, and John Forsyth had 
replied "with great dignity and firmness." That night it 
seemed to Jackson that Calhoun had been placed "between 
Scylla and Charybdis," and was "reckless." The uncer- 
tainty of negotiations had passed, and the hour for action — 
the happy hour for Jackson — had struck. The conferences 
with Drayton were over. Poinsett, at the front, was now the 
man of the hour. The moment the Nullifiers were "in hos- 
tile array," this fact was to be certified to Jackson by the 
attorney for the district, or the judge, and he would "forth- 
with order the leaders arrested and prosecuted." And he 
added in his note to Poinsett: "We will strike at the head 
and demolish the monster Nullification and secession at the 
threshold by the power of the law." ^ 

Thus, that night, the fingers of Andrew Jackson were 
itching for the throat of John C. Calhoun. 

Five days later, Senator Wilkins, of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee, presented the famous "Force Bill," and one of the 
most violent debates in history began. On the following day, 
Calhoun submitted a set of resolutions setting forth his views 
of the constitutional question involved, in the hope of thereby 
directing the debate into that channel. But the Senate was 
in no temper for such a discussion and pushed forward to the 

1 Letter to Poinsett, Stille's Lije of Poinsett. 



270 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

debate on the main and pressing question. The Calhoun 
resolutions were speedily tabled. Wilkins led off in the 
debate, and others followed, one on the heels of the other, 
until at length John Tyler took the floor to deliver the speech 
which, after that of Calhoun, was the most forceful attack 
to be made upon the measure. Reading his speech to-day 
one wonders how the Republic outlived the Jackson Ad- 
ministrations. Dire calamity was predicted as a result of 
his every action. He saw Carolinians again driven "into the 
morasses where Marion and Sumter found refuge," with their 
cities and towns leveled to the dust, and their daughters 
clothed in mourning, with "helpless orphans" made of their 
"rising sons." But, he continued, "I will not despair. Rome 
had her Curtius, Sparta her Leonidas, and Athens her band 
of devoted patriots; and shall it be said that the American 
Senate contains not one man who will step forward to rescue 
his country in this, her moment of peril? Although that man 
may never wear an earthly crown or sway an earthly scepter, 
eternal fame shall weave an evergreen around his brow, and 
his name shall rank with the proudest patriots of the proud- 
est climes." 

With the closing sentence, Tyler turned significantly to 
Henry Clay, who sat an interested spectator. Throughout 
this memorable debate he was to remain mute. The great 
orator and party leader was making sympathetic gestures 
to the extreme State-Rights men of the South. Even at this 
time, and knowing Tyler's views, he was writing to his friend, 
Francis Brooke: "Will he [Tyler] be reelected? We feel here 
some solicitude on that point, being convinced that under all 
circumstances, he would be far preferable to any person that 
could be sent." ^ And such was his partisan hate of Jackson 
that the second leader of the party Opposition, John M. 
Clayton, in speaking in support of the Force Bill, could 
not refrain from an exhibition of boorishness and bigotry in 

1 Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 460. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 271 

coupling his advocacy of the Jackson measure with a sneer 
at Jackson. 

"My support of the measure," he said, "is predicated on 
no servile submission to any Executive mandate, on no 
impHcit and unlimited faith in any man. ... I will not be 
deterred from the adoption of this measure by any consider- 
ation of the source from which it has emanated." 

Thus did Clayton contribute to the pleasure of the Nulli- 
fiers by the denunciation of the man who stood in their way, 
and in sneering at those Southern Democrats who stood 
squarely behind Jackson despite the gibes of the Calhoun 
followers that they were yielding a servile submission. 

Meanwhile Jackson's supporters were giving the measure 
their undivided support, and none of them more heartily, 
and none so ably, as Senators from the South. Senator Felix 
Grundy of Tennessee, able lawyer, seasoned statesman, re- 
sourceful parliamentarian, took charge of the fight on the 
floor. Rives of Virginia, learned constitutional lawyer, 
scholarly, polished, heroically sacrificed a seat in the Senate 
to stand by the Union. And Forsyth of Georgia, "the great- 
est debater of his time," affected to look upon the Nullifica- 
tion doctrine as "the double distilled essence of nonsense." 

As the fight developed and the certainty of defeat grew 
upon the Nullifiers, efforts were made to gain time, with the 
Administration forces pressing for action. Senator Willie 
Mangum of North Carolina, brilliant, and sacrificing a great 
career to drink, on securing the floor asked for an adjourn- 
ment on the ground of indisposition. Ordinarily the request 
would have been granted. But Forsyth, Grundy, and Wilkins 
were instantly on their feet with objections. Calhoun, point- 
ing out that Mangum was the only member of the Judiciary 
Committee opposed to the bill, begged that he be given an 
opportunity to explain his position, only to be told, none too 
graciously, by Wilkins, that he had no doubt of Mangum's 
capacity to speak then. When Calhoun reminded him of 



272 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Mangum's plea of indisposition, he was ignored. At this 
juncture, Webster, who had been silent, suggested that 
Mangum could easily speak on another day and the debate 
proceed. Whereupon Senator King of Alabama made a 
transparent effort to draw Webster's speech at once. The 
New England orator significantly replied that "the gentle- 
man from Massachusetts fully understands the gentleman 
from Alabama; but he has no disposition to address the 
Senate at present, nor, under existing circumstances, at any 
other time, on the subject of this bill." This was taken as 
indicating Webster's conviction that up to that time the 
advocates of the bill needed no reenf orcements, and that he 
would reserve himself for Calhoun. 

It was during these proceedings that an exchange occurred 
between Poindexter and Grundy which illustrates the hair- 
trigger conditions in Carolina. A rumor had just spread 
through the chamber that Jackson had ordered a portion of 
the fleet to occupy Charleston Harbor, and had sent instruc- 
tions to the military commander in Charleston, and Poindex- 
ter hnmediately offered a resolution calling upon the Presi- 
dent for information as to his actions and intentions. Grundy 
calmly, if provokingly, suggested that perhaps some very re- 
spectable gentlemen of Charleston had furnished the President 
with information on which the secret orders had been is- 
sued, and that Poindexter would surely not ask the names 
of the gentlemen and all the circumstances of the disclosure. 

"All — all — the whole of them!" cried Poindexter. 

"But would not such disclosures lead to the immediate 
shedding of blood?" Grundy inquired. 

"I care not if it does!" shouted the excited Mississippian. 
"Let us have the information no matter what the circum- 
stances!" 

Grundy smilingly took his seat. 

Thus the debate dragged on — the two greatest figures 
still silent. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 273 

VI 

Meanavhile, as the debate proceeded, Jackson was watch- 
ing South CaroHna and making all his preparations. On 
January 24th, he wrote Poinsett that the Force Bill debate 
was about to begin, that he had done his duty, and if Con- 
gress failed to act, and he should be informed of the assem- 
blage of an armed force, he stood ready for drastic measures.* 
There is something of the heroic mingled with pathos in the 
picture this letter presents of Jackson at this time. It was 
late at night. The House sat late. He had not heard since 
seven o'clock. "My eyes grow dim." 

Two hours later he ordered General Scott to Charleston 
to repel by force any attempt to seize the forts.^ Holding his 
rage in check, measuring every step by his constitutional 
and legal powers, determined to do nothing rashly to precip- 
itate bloodshed, Jackson held himself in readiness, as the 
debate on the Force Bill proceeded, to meet any eventuality 
I that might arise.^ But Jackson and the Administration were 
; not at all satisfied with the progress of the debate. None of 
: the trio of genius, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, had yet par- 
i ticipated. It would be too much to expect that Clay would 
speak on behalf of any Jackson measure, and it was certain 
I that Calhoun would deliver one of his characteristically pow- 
erful arguments against the bill. There was just one man 
strong enough to meet the impact of that argument, and that 
I was Webster. It was a reasonable hope that he would promi- 
! nently support the measure involving the principles he had 
I made his own. Among his intimates, such as Story, it was 
' expected that he would enter at the psychological moment, 
1 but the great orator kept his own counsels, and during the 
' early part of the debate was absent from the Senate Cham- 

* Stille's Life of Poinsett. 

* Instructions in letter of Cass to Scott, Smith's Ldfe of Cass. 
« Jackson to Poinsett, Feb. 7, 1833, Stille's Life of PoinseU. 



274 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ber on other engagements. As Calhoun prepared his heavy 
artillery for action, the apprehension of Jackson and his 
supporters increased, and every effort was made, at first 
through Webster's friends, to learn his intentions.^ Then, 
one day, a carriage halted before the lodgings of Webster, and 
the tall figure of Livingston emerged and entered the house. 
It was not a half-hearted welcome to the Administration 
camp that the Secretary of State offered. On the contrary, 
Webster was earnestly importuned to take the lead on the 
floor, and to frame any amendments he thought necessary. ^ 
If such importunity was unnecessary, it was none the less 
pleasing to the vanity of the orator, and Livingston was able 
to carry back to the White House the assurance that when 
Calhoun spoke he would be answered by Webster. On the 
11th of February, Webster was ready and waiting.^ Four 
days later, abandoning the hope that Webster might speak 
first, Calhoun began one of the most powerful speeches of his 
career. The Senate Chamber and the galleries were packed. 
As the tall, gaunt figure, with slightly stooped shoulders, 
rose, the solemnity of his mien and manner, the fire in the 
wonderful eyes that "watched everything and revealed 
nothing," suggested, to some, the conspirator with his back 
against the wall, to others the austere patriot battling for the 
liberties of his country.^ We need not concern ourselves with 
the general tenor of his remarkable argument — a reiteration 
and reenforcement of his constitutional views. But the gen- 
eral spirit of resentment, the passionate hate of Jackson, the 
defiance, constitute dramatic features that assist in the sens- 
ing of the atmosphere in which the mighty battle was waged. 
Almost in the beginning, in defending his support of the 
tariff of 1816, and explaining that he had spoken at the in- 

^ Perleys Reminiscences, i, 140. 

^ March's Reminiscences of Conyress, and Pcrlcys Reminiscences. 
' Story to Brazier, Life and Letters of Story, ii, 124. 

* March, in his Reminiscences of Congress, gives the best description of the Force 
Bill debate. 



' THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 275 

stance of Ingham, the late Secretary of the Treasury, this 
spirit flared in an amazing tribute to that mediocre and un- 
scrupulous politician, and an indirect attack upon Jackson 
for dismissing him. As he proceeded, he startled the Senate 
now and then by the injection of personalities. Here a con- 
temptuous fling at Van Buren, there a hint at Mrs. Eaton, 
and everywhere references to contemplated "war" and 
"massacres" and "savages." "I proclaim it," he solemnly 
declared, "that should this bill pass, and attempt be made to 
enforce it, it will be resisted at every hazard — even that of 
death itself." It was two o'clock on the second day of the 
speech that Calhoun concluded, with a warning to Southern 
Senators that should the bill be enacted all of them would be 
excluded from the emoluments of the Government, "which 
will be reserved for those only who have qualified them- 
selves, by political prostitution, for admission into the Mag- 
dalen Asylum." 

The moment he sank into his seat, Daniel Webster rose. 

The relations between Webster and the Administration 
leaders after the visit of Livingston had been intimate and 
confidential, and the orator had availed himself of the in- 
vitation to make desirable amendments. One stormy day 
during this period, the great opponent of the Democratic 
Party might have been seen rolling up to the Capitol in the 
White House carriage. On the floor, when he rose, were 
many of the Administration leaders, including Lewis, ready 
to hasten the news of the speech and its reception to the 
White House, where Jackson was anxiously, but confidently, 
waiting. It was late in the evening when the orator concluded 
his masterful argument on the proposition that "the Consti- 
tution is not a compact between sovereign States." Brush- 
ing aside the personalities, scarcely referring to any speech 
made during the debate, he took the resolutions Calhoun 
had submitted as embodying his views, and based his argu- 
ment upon these. Speaking with his accustomed gravity. 



276 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

with more than his usual earnestness, without passion or per- 
sonal feeling, he took up the sophistries of the Nullification 
school and crushed them, one by one. Nullification was rev- 
olution, and success meant the destruction of the Republic, 
chaos, the end of American liberty. To prevent these evils 
was the duty of the National authority; and the Force Bill 
was necessary for their prevention. 

Long before he closed, the lights had been lit in the little 
Senate Chamber where the crowd was densely packed. With 
his conclusion the galleries rose and cheered, and Poindexter, 
outraged at the exhibition of feeling, indignantly demanded 
an immediate adjournment. The great word had been 
spoken in the Senate — the Proclamation reiterated on the 
floor. No one was more delighted with Webster's triumph 
than Jackson. "Mr. Webster replied to Mr. Calhoun yes- 
terday," he wrote Poinsett, "and, it is said, demolished him. 
It is believed by more than one that Mr. Calhoun is in a 
state of dementation — his speech was a perfect failure; 
and Mr. Webster handled him as a child." ^ 

Thus Webster entered upon more intimate relations with 
the White House, with Jackson personally thanking him for 
a great public service, and Livingston reiterating expressions 
of appreciation. The Jackson Senators, Isaac Hill ex- 
cepted, joined in the assiduous cultivation of the orator, and 
he was invited to strike from a list of applicants for office the 
names of all displeasing to himself. Such was the enthusiasm 
of the President that overtures were unquestionably made 
to Webster, as set forth by Benton, ^ to gain his adherence to 
the Administration. It was a crisis in his life and in the poli- 
tics of the Nation. He was then closer to Jackson's views on 
vital matters than to those of either Clay or Calhoun. His 
antipathy to the latter's doctrines was as pronounced as that 
of Jackson; and he had no respect for Clay's play to the 

1 Jackson to Poinsett, Feb. 17, 1833, Still^'s Life of Poinsett. 
* Thirty Years" View. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 277 

seditious with his compromise tariff. His ideas were not 
remote from those of Livingston. Had he then broken with 
his old co-workers, and alHed himself with the dominant 
party, he would have been advanced immeasurably toward 
the Presidency. Senator Lodge admits ^ that there was much 
truth in Benton's theory, but reasonably holds that the coali- 
tion would have been wrecked by the inevitable clashing of 
, the conflicting temperaments. 

vn 

Meanwhile, with the debate dwindling to an anti-climax, 
Calhoun and his friends were not nearly so indifferent to war 

, as they pretended. It was generally understood that Jack- 
son was ready and eager to strike the moment an overt act 

I was committed. With Hayne urging caution, some irre- 
sponsible hothead might at any moment hasten the crisis. 

: Then, all knew, Jackson would place South Carolina under 
martial law, arrest Calhoun for treason, and turn him over 
to the courts for trial. Some of the latter's friends began to 
interest themselves in a compromise tariff that would open 

j a door of escape. The Whig protectionists, the Nullifiers, 

: and the Bank were rapidly rushing together to make common 
cause against Jackson. Under Clay's leadership at the be- 
ginning of the session these elements united in electing Duff 
Green, of the "Telegraph," printer to the Senate, and Gales, 
of the "Intelligencer," to the House. Thus, through Clay, 
the Nullification organ secured a new lease of life, and flooded 
the South with circularized appeals for support. "If the 
people of the South deserve to be free they will not per- 

imit this press to go down," Green wrote — and this was 

; known to Clay. The Bank party looked on approvingly, 
with John Sargeant writing enthusiastically to Biddle of 
the new political alignments. "The new state of parties," 
he wrote, " will be founded upon a combination of the South, 

1 Life of Webster, 214-15. 



278 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

and the leaders of it are friends of the Bank upon principle, 
and will be more so from opposition to Jackson. " ^ With this 
alignment in mind, John M. Clayton cynically observed to 
Clay that "these South Carolinians are acting very badly, but 
they are good fellows, and it would be a pity to let Jackson 
hang them." ^ When Representative Letcher of Kentucky, 
a boisterous partisan of Clay's, suggested the compromise 
plan to his chief, he "received it at first coolly and doubt- 
fully." ^ Afterwards Clay reconsidered and broached the sub- 
ject to Webster, who, holding the Jackson view, replied that 
"it would be yielding great principles to faction; that the 
time had come to test the strength of the Constitution and 
the Government." ^ Thereafter Webster was not included in 
the consultations. 

Perhaps the true story of the compromise tariff of 1833 will 
never be known. One version credits the initiative to Clayton 
in calling a meeting of men primarily interested in the 
tariff, and only incidentally in the Nullification crisis, con- 
sisting of but half the New England Senators, and the two 
from Delaware, with Clay, Webster, and Calhoun all absent.^ 
Many years later John Tyler accepted the responsibility. 
According to his version he "waited on Mr. Clay." They 
"conversed about the times." Clay "saw the danger." 
Tyler "appealed to his patriotism," and "no man appealed 
so in vain." The Virginian referred Clay "to another man 
as the only one necessary to consult, and that man was 
John C. Calhoun." It would not only be necessary for Clay 
to "satisfy his own party," but to "reconcile an opposite 
party by large concessions." Thus Clay and Calhoun "met, 
consulted and agreed." ^ This differs in some particulars 
from the Benton version.^ Here we have it that Clay pre- 
pared his measure and sent it to Calhoun by Letcher, as the 

^ Correspondence oj Nicholas Biddle, 201. * Thirty Years' View, i, 342. 

^ Ibid. * Ibid. ^ Comegys, Memoir of Clayton. 

, ^ Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 467. ' Thirty Years' View. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 279 

two negotiators were not, at the time, on speaking terms. 
Finding some objectionable features which he thought a 
personal interview would persuade the author to eliminate, 
Calhoun asked Letcher to arrange a conference, which was 
held in Clay's room. The meeting was "cold and distant." 
Clay rose, bowed, and asked Calhoun to be seated, and, to 
relieve the embarrassment, Letcher took his departure. Clay 
refused to yield. 

The story here enters into the melodramatic although 
there is nothing impossible about it. Letcher, in another 
conference, this time with Jackson, found the grim old war- 
rior hard set against any sort of a compromise, unwilling to 
discuss one, and determined to enforce the laws. The Ken- 
tuckian related the conversation to McDuffie; he to Calhoun. 
A little later Letcher was awakened from a sound sleep by 
Senator Johnston of Louisiana, an intimate friend of Clay, 
with the startling story that he had heard authoritatively 
that Jackson would admit of no further delay, and was pre- 
paring to arrest Calhoun for treason. It was agreed that the 
Carolinian should be immediately notified, and in the dark- 
ness of the night Letcher hastened to Calhoun's lodgings. 
As the gaunt statesman sat up in bed, the Johnston story was 
told him and "he was evidently disturbed." ^ That some such 
incident occurred is corroborated by Perley Poore,^ who was 
an observer of events in the Washington of that day. Here we 
have some embellishments. Calhoun had heard some threats 
and had sent Letcher to Jackson to ascertain his intentions. 
The old man's eyes had been "lighted by an unwonted fire," 
and he had told the emissary that with the first overt act, he 
would try Calhoun for treason and "hang him high as Ha- 
man." Thereupon Letcher made all haste to Calhoun, who 
received him sitting up in bed, with a cloak thrown around 
him. "There sat Calhoun," wrote Perley Poore, "drinking 
in eagerly every word, and, as Letcher proceeded, he turned 

* Benton's Thirty Years View, i, 343. * Perley s Reminiscences. 



280 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

pale as death, and great as he was in intellect, trembled like 
an aspen leaf, not from fear or cowardice, but from conscious- 
ness of guilt." ^ Here we detect the professional journalist! 
drawing perhaps on his imagination to dramatize the picture. 

However, Calhoun, convinced of Jackson's grim deter- 
mination, was ready to welcome a way out short of conflict I 
or utter humiliation, and at the same time Clay and Clayton 
were not happy over the situation. The protective system 
had brought the country to the very verge of disintegration. 
With Nullification crushed by force, conservative public 
opinion might demand a complete reversal of the revenue 
policy and destroy the "American System." That Clay at' 
this time was thinking primarily of the preservation of his 
protective system, and secondarily of currying favor with 
the extreme State-Rights party, including the Nullifiers, is 
plainly disclosed in the record. Thus the proposed com- 
bination of the Nullifiers and the protectionists to stay the 
arm of Jackson. In this combination no one was more prom- 
inent than John M. Clayton, the brilliant and bibulous, who 
frankly cared less about saving the Union than of saving the 
tariff, and who would "pause long before he surrendered it 
[the tariff] even to save the Union. "^ He was to prove him- 
self as good as his word a little later. 

Thus, in the midst of the discussion of the Force Bill, Clay, 
Calhoun, Clayton, Letcher, and Tyler were in constant com- 
munication on the compromise tariff. Webster was utterly 
ignored, as was Jackson, these two refusing to "compromise 
a principle" in any such fashion.^ The fact that Clay and 
Calhoun had reached a general agreement was soon known, 
and it was accepted as an offensive and defensive alliance 
against Jackson. "They are partners in a contra dance," 
wrote Blair in the "Globe." "For some time they turned 

^ Perlcijs Reminiscences, i, 138. ' 

^ < "lay ton's speech on the compromise tariff. 

8 Van Buren thought Clay's action patriotic and Webster's "bloody." {Autohi- 
ograpky, 35i-57.) 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 281 

their backs on each other. They will make a match of it. 
In plain Enghsh, we have a new coalition." ^ 

In due time the bill was introduced by Clay, much to the 
delight of Tyler. "I recall the enthusiasm I felt that day,'* 
said Tyler, almost thirty years afterwards. "We advanced 
to meet each other, and grasped each other's hands, midway 
of the chamber." ^ This measure, differing from Clay's origi- 
nal plan, provided that for all articles paying more than 
twenty per cent duty, the surplus above that rate should be 
gradually reduced, until in 1842 all should disappear. The 
manufacturers as usual had been summoned and consulted. 
At first dismayed and outraged, they soon realized that it 
was to their interest to fall into line. Certain features had been 
voted down in committee, but here Clayton asserted himself. 
He announced that these would be introduced as amendments 
on the floor, and that unless every NuUifier voted for them 
all, he would kill the bill himself by making the motion to 
table it. The most objectionable of these, to Calhoun, was 
that on home valuation. 

Such was the situation when Clay presented the bill on 
February 12th, three days before Calhoun rose to speak on 
the Force Bill. Webster and Adams, thoroughly disgusted, 
at once announced their opposition, and Jackson could not 
restrain his contempt for the unholy alHance, which was 
almost immediately to become a triple alliance with the Bank 
as the third party. "I have no doubt," the President wrote 
Hamilton, "the people will duly appreciate the motive which 
led to it." 3 

In presenting the measure, Clay made no secret of his 
purpose. "I believe the American System to be in the great- 
est danger," he said, "and I beheve that it can be placed on 
a better and a safer foundation at this session than next." 
Webster, however, was not impressed. "This may be so, sir,'* 

1 Globe, Feb. 20, 1833. ^ Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 467. 

' Jackson to Hamilton, Hamilton's Reminiscences. 



282 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

he replied. "This may be so. But, if it be so, it is because the 
American people will not sanction the tariff; and if they will 
not, then, sir, it cannot be sustained at all." Calhoun heartily 
approved the object of the bill. "He who loves the Union," 
he said, "must desire to see this agitating question brought 
to a termination." John Forsyth, representing the Admin- 
istration, objected to the introduction of the bill fourteen 
days before the expiration of the Congress. Would it not be 
better to await the action of the House on the bill before it — 
the Verplanck Bill? And he objected, properly, on the ground 
that all revenue measures had to originate in the House. 
This constitutional objection, raised by Forsyth, was met 
on February 25th just as the House was about to adjourn for 
dinner, when the ever handy Letcher arose and moved the 
substitution of the Clay bill for the one then pending. The 
motion was carried and the bill passed the lower branch of 
Congress.^ 

Thus the two measures, the Force Bill and the compromise 
tariff, were pending in the Senate at the same time, with 
Clay making every effort, but without avail, to pass his 
measure first. 

On February 24th the Force Bill was called up for final 
action. With the beginning of the calling of the roll, all the 
enemies of the measure, with the single exception of John 
Tyler, arose and filed from the Senate Chamber. Taken by 
surprise at such conduct, Tyler immediately moved an ad- 
journment. Wilkins called attention to the fact that Cal- 
houn and his followers had just that moment withdrawn, and 
the motion was defeated. The roll-call proceeded — and only 
the name of John Tyler appears on the list of the negatives. 
Such was always the courage of this much-belittled man — 
a courage which we shall meet again. ^ Five days later the 
tariff bill was called up, and Clayton offered his amendments 

> Letcher's character and status are discussed by Adams, Memoirs, March 5, 1831. 
' Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 467. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 283 

which were so offensive to Calhoun and his followers, re- 
peating his threat to kill the bill if Calhoun and all the 
Nullifiers did not vote for every amendment. Clay and 
Calhoun consulted, and Clayton was importuned to yield, 
but the stubborn protectionist was adamant. Thus con- 
fronted, Clay and Calhoun accepted the amendments, and, 
as Clayton presented them, voted for them, one by one, until 
the last and most distasteful, on home valuation, was reached. 

Here the friends of Calhoun balked, and Clayton, never 
given to idle bluster, immediately made his motion to table 
the bill. Clay implored, and Clayton set his jaws and shook 
his head. The measure seemed doomed. Meanwhile, the 
Nullifiers, greatly alarmed, withdrew to the space behind 
the Vice-President's chair for consultation. Finally Clayton 
was requested to withdraw his motion to give Calhoun and 
his friends time for consideration. With the understanding 
that, unless the votes were forthcoming, the motion would be 
renewed, the request was granted, and the Senate adjourned 
for the night. 

The morning found Clayton confronted with a plan de- 
vised during the night to spare Calhoun the humiliation of 
voting for the hated amendment, provided enough votes 
were assured to carry it through without his vote. The im- 
movable Clayton sternly shook his head. Calhoun must vote 
for every amendment and for the bill. When the Senate con- 
vened, it was still uncertain what the Carolinian would do. 
At length, after all of his friends had first stated their objec- 
tions, and yet reluctantly yielded, Calhoun arose, repeated 
the performance, and, having voted for the amendment at 
the dictation of Clayton, voted for the bill.^ The unhappy 
plight of Calhoun was not lost upon his enemies, and Blair 
found in it an inspiration for his sarcasm. "A single night," 
he wrote, "was suflScient to change the settled opinion of the 

* Benton makes the point that Clayton, and not Clay or Calhoun, was the master 
of the situation. {Thirty Years' View, i, 344.) 



284 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

profound reader of the Constitution. We exceedingly doubt 
whether in the private interview in which Mr. Clay disposed 
of Mr. Calhoun's constitutional scruples, a word was uttered 
in relation to the Constitution." ^ Thus passed into law, 
under circumstances deserving of Benton's reprehension,! 
the measure concocted by a combination of erstwhile foes.^ 
The Nullifiers died hard, and Duff Green, the pen of Nullifi- 
cation, made printer to the Senate by this incongruous com- 
bination, in performing the hateful official duty of publish- 
ing the Force Bill in the "Telegraph," had the impudence 
to dress his paper in mourning. "This is the way," observed i 
a Jacksonian paper, "this ungrateful wretch shows his grat- 
itude to the Senate for his recent appointment." ^ 

vm 

Meanwhile, what of South Carolina? 

The letter of Cass, published in the "Richmond Enquirer," 
had borne fruit, and Virginia had sent Benjamin Watkins 
Leigh, a lawyer of distinction and an orator of no mean 
ability, to Charleston to ask a suspension of the Nullification 
Ordinance until Congress had adjourned. An ardent dev- 
otee of State Rights, now a bitter enemy of Jackson, and 
soon to enter the Senate to make his opposition felt, he had 
much in his principles and personality to command a re- 
spectful hearing from South Carolina. The call of the Nulli- 
fication Convention was consequently postponed until after 
the adjournment of Congress, and March 11th was fixed as 
the day for reassembling. By that time it was all over — the 
Force Bill in effect. The convention met at Columbia, with 
Hayne in the chair. Leigh was invited within the bar. The 
dominating figure of the scene, however, was Calhoun, who 
had gone post-haste to Carolina to urge the acceptance of 
the compromise. The tall, thin figure of the great Senator, 
seated among the delegates on the floor, was the star of the 

» Globe, March 2. 1833. « Thirty Years' View, i, 346. » Mohawk GazeUe. 



THE POLITICS OF NULLIFICATION 285 

assembly. A committee was named to consider the general 
course of action; and one week later the Ordinance of Nulli- 
fication was rescinded, and by a vote of 153 to 4 the conven- 
tion agreed that the threatened danger was over. 

Erhe political effect of the fight was to be felt throughout 
period of the generation then living. The Secessionists 
and Nullifiers paraded, with much flapping of banners, 
out of the Democratic Party, to be joyously and effusively 
welcomed by Henry Clay into the Opposition. During the 
remainder of Jackson's Administration, the most bitter and 
persistent of his foes were to be men, once Democrats, who 
had left the party because Jackson was prepared to preserve 
the Union with the sword. Calhoun and Preston, McDuffie 
and Poindexter, Leigh and Tyler — these were to crowd 
Clay for the leadership of the party that now prepared to 
enter the lists against Jackson and his Administration, flying 
the flag, and posing as the real friends of the Republic and 
the Constitution. If they had been free with their charac- 
terizations of Jackson during the Nullification fight as "ty- 
rant," "despot," "autocrat," they were to use the epithets 
more frequently in opposing him upon the Bank. If during 
this latter struggle they were to speak with almost convincing 
eloquence of the destruction of free institutions, they had 
learned the language when calling upon the people to defend 
their liberties against the author of the Nullification Proc- 
lamation. Out of this alliance, for which Clay had so cun- 
ningly planned, was to come a party to oppose the Demo- 
cratic Party with indifferent success for twenty-two years; 
and, strangely enough, the only one of its leaders to become 
a beneficiary of the unholy alliance was John Tyler, who was 
to reach the White House. Poinsett, after the Nullification 
fight, retired to his rice plantation, where he lived with his 
books and enjoying the society of cultivated men and women, 
until called by Van Buren to enter his Cabinet. Serving 
throughout the Administration, he returned, at the expiration 



286 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

of his term, to his plantation, where he died ten years before 
the attack on Sumter. 

The passage of the two important measures was not, how- 
ever, to end the drama of the session — one of the most 
dramatic in American history. It was on the last night that 
Jackson, finding many of his friends had left the Capitol, 
"pocketed" Clay's Land Bill and his own veto. Naturally 
enough the session ended in bitter partisan wrangles and 
with much bad blood on both sides. Uproarious shouts of 
derision greeted the customary resolution of thanks to the 
Speaker. Many members were in a state of hopeless drunk- 
enness. It was five o'clock in the morning when Adams in- 
vited Edward Everett to ride home with him. The drowsy 
driver touched the horses, and over the frozen ruts of the 
Avenue, the carriage jolted homeward. Almost immediately 
the driver was asleep, and the carriage, striking a rut in 
front of Gadsby's, the sleepy statesmen narrowly escaped a 
plunge into the snow. Soon, however, they reached the " mac- 
adamized part of the Avenue," without more mishaps; and 
having left Everett at his lodgings, Adams alighted and 
walked to his own home, with the thermometer registering 
six below zero. Thus the last figure of that historic and bitter 
session of whom we catch a glimpse is that of the short, 
blear-eyed ex-President, trudging homeward through the 
dark, ill-paved Washington streets at five o'clock on a frigid 
morning.* 

* Adams's Memoirs, March 2, 1833. 



CHAPTER XI 

JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 
I 

Congress adjourned two days before the second inaugura- 
tion of Jackson, which lacked the spectacular features of the 
first. His brief inaugural address revealed absolute con- 
fidence in the approval of the people. There was nothing on 
the surface to warn of his purpose to continue an aggressive 
war upon the Bank. The transfer of Livingston from the 
State Department to the Legation in Paris necessitated a 
reorganization of the Cabinet. Louis McLane, unsympa- 
thetic toward the President's Bank policy, was moved from 
the Treasury to the State Department. This left the sec- 
retaryship of the Treasury vacant, and it was of the highest 
importance that it be filled by one in complete harmony 
with the Executive plans. 

The choice finally fell on William J. Duane of Philadelphia, 
variously described as "a distinguished lawyer" and as "the 
bottom of the Philadelphia bar." His selection had been rec- 
ommended by Van Buren ^ and urged by McLane, who was 
Van Buren's intimate at the time.^ He was at least known 
to Jackson as the son of the fighting editor of the "Aurora," 
which had led the fight against the Alien and Sedition Laws.^ 
! Assuming in the son the militant qualities of the father, and 
actuated partly, perhaps, by the thought that the appoint- 
ment would strengthen the Administration in its fight upon 
the Bank, Duane was pressed to enter the Cabinet, and con- 

' Autobiography, 600. 

^ Professor Bassett credits the appointment to McLane (Life of Jackson), and 
Parton has it that it was a personal appointment of Jackson's (Parton's Life of 
Jackson, n, 632). 

• See George Henry Payne's History of Journalism in the United States, 176-89. 



I 



288 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

sented. The personality and character of Duane are dim on 
the page of history. The Democratic press was apparently 
hard put to explain the appointment. The "Harrisburg 
Chronicle" described him as possessing "a well disciplined 
mind, severe habits of business, which, combined with sound 
Democratic principles and unbending integrity, are the high- 
est recommendations for oflBce in a free popular government." 
Thomas Ritchie, of the "Richmond Enquirer," who made 
a more studied effort, feared that the appointment would 
"scarcely be hailed with the feeling of approbation which it 
so richly deserves." But Duane understood "the character 
of the Bank of the United States — its designs and dangers," 
and "on that cardinal subject we have no doubt he will 
deserve and command the confidence of the friends of the 
Constitution." The " Pennsylvanian " informed the Na- 
tional Democracy that "Stephen Gerard saw and appreci- 
ated his talents," and that he was "one of the most sagacious 
men of the age." ^ It was only after his break with Jackson 
that the champions of the Bank discovered his many vir- 
tues, and Administration circles his utter insignificance. One 
of Jackson's enemies, in berating him, referred to Duane as 
"that other darling whom you fished up from the desk of a 
dead miser, and the bottom of the Philadelphia bar." ^ At 
first, however, Jackson was much impressed with his dis- 
covery, and frequently referred to him as "a chip of the old 
block, sir." 

Having reorganized his Cabinet, Jackson now concentrated 
on his plans for the invasion of "the enemy's country" — his 
New England tour. His remarkable popularity in that quar- 
ter, previously so hostile, grew out of his vigorous defense of 
the Union and his new relations with Webster. In the spring 
of 1833 these relations were most cordial, and never were to 
become personally bitter. At that time he was not on speaking 

^ These editorial comments were copied in the Globe by Blair. 
' Henry Lee, quoted by Bassett, Life of Jackson, ii, 633, 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 289 

terms with either Clay or Calhoun, and when he met Adams 
on the street, by chance, he bowed stiffly, without a word. 
But whenever, in his meanderings about the dingy capital, 
he encountered Webster, the iron man would pause for a 
hearty greeting. And while Webster never ceased to consider 
Jackson temperamentally unfit for the Presidency, he never 
doubted his integrity or whole-hearted patriotism. "His 
patriotism," he was wont to say, "is no more to be ques- 
tioned than that of Washington." ^ 

It was early in June that Jackson set forth in company 
with Van Buren, Cass, Woodbury, Donelson, Hill, and the 
artist, Earle, who lived at the White House. From the 
moment the party reached Baltimore it was one continuous 
ovation. Received like a conquering hero in Philadelphia, 
with an enthusiasm bordering on idolatry in New York City,^ 
the ovations he received in Massachusetts eclipsed them all. 
Harvard conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, 
Everett delivered an address of welcome at the foot of Bunker 
Hill, and while the multitude went wild at sight of him in 
the streets and on the Common, the gentry of Beacon Street 
refused him the homage of appearing at the windows,^ and 
the crabbed Adams, hiding at his Quincy home, a few miles 
away, poured forth his spleen upon his journal and mourned 
the degradation of his Alma Mater. ^ Under the load of 
adulation, the old man's strength finally failed, and during 
the last part of his progress he dragged himself from his bed 
to the parade, and from the physician with his barbarous 
lancet to the master of ceremonies.^ Throughout the tour 
his thoughts were centered on the Bank and his plans for 
I the removal of the deposits, and but few suspected that the 

* * Thurlow Weed's Autobiography. 

^ Hone in his Diary, hostile, recorded, after witnessing the ovation, that he was 
"certainly the most popular man we have ever known." (June 13, 1833.) 

* Josiah Quincy's Figures of the Past. 

* Memoirs, June 17, June 18, June 27, July 2, 1833. 

' See Quincy's Figures qf the Past for graphic description of the Massachusetts _ 
ovations. 



290 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

courtly old man, whose eyes moistened and beamed at the 
applause of the crowds, was meditating the step. 

When Hamilton called upon him at his hotel in New York, 
he found him obsessed with the subject. When the son of 
the father of the first National Bank joined him in the pres- 
idential suite to accompany him to the banquet, Jackson 
placed in his hands papers by several people urging the re- 
moval of the deposits, with the request that he examine 
them carefully and give him an opinion. Promising a care- 
ful perusal, Hamilton ventured the suggestion that the pro- 
posed step was "a very questionable one" that would "lead 
to great disturbances in commercial affairs." ^ Meanwhile, 
when alone with Van Buren, the President was discussing the 
project with him to his keen distress.^ Throughout the tour, 
sick or well, Jackson found time to work on the Vice-Presi- 
dent and favorite, and when, at Concord, he finally won him 
over to the plan, the frail old man abandoned the tour and 
hastened back to Washington to begin a new battle.^ And 
Adams, learning of the curtailment of the trip, wrote that 
"President Jackson has been obliged by the feeble state of 
his health to give up the remainder of his tour."/ Just how 
feeble Jackson was we shall soon see. •« 

in 

It is impossible definitely to determine the time Jackson 
decided on the removal of the deposits. The activity of the 
Bank in the presidential campaign had not been lost upon 
him, and he probably had it under consideration at that 
time. The historian of the Bank is convinced that such 
was the case.^ Immediately after the election these ru- 

^ Hamilton had been previously warned of the plan by McLane. (Hamilton's 
Reminiscences, 253.) 

2 Van Buren gives the impression that he actually helped Jackson work out his 
plans on this trip. (Autobiography, 602-03.) 

3 Hamilton's story in his Reminiscences. * Memoirs, July 2, 1833. 
' Catterall's Second Bank of the United States, 128. 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 291 

mors multiplied, and Biddle was deluged with warnings, 
but without disturbing the sublime serenity of his conceit. 
The autocrat of the Bank was satisfied that the Calhoun 
following would thereafter be arrayed in favor of the re- 
charter. About this time Dr. Thomas Cooper, then presi- 
dent of the College of South Carolina and one of the intel- 
lectual leaders of Nullification, wrote him of his allegiance 
to the cause.^ Blair had already charged, in the "Globe," 
that there was a coalition between the forces of Clay, Cal- 
houn, and Biddle, and made much of the fact that more Bank 
stock was owned in South Carolina than in all the other 
States of the Union south of the Potomac and west of the 
Alleghany Mountains. ^ The Democratic disaffection, to- 
gether with the temporary alliance between Jackson and 
Webster, was quite enough to restore confidence to the ever 
sanguine Biddle,^ who took no pains to conceal his satisfac- 
tion. This was water on the wheel of Blair, who, lago-Hke, 
and always at Jackson's elbow, kept impressing him with 
the idea that the Bank planned and expected an ultimate 
triumph. In this work he was ably seconded by Amos Ken- 
dall and James A. Hamilton, who wrote from New York that 
*'a gentleman whose knowledge of the views of the U.S. 
Bank is only second to that of its President" had informed 
him that it expected to get a new charter.^ It was firmly 
believed by Amos Kendall that the Bank's purpose in add- 
ing $28,000,000 to its discounts, and multiplying its debtors 
and dependents, was to serve a political end in the campaign 
of 1836, and with characteristic persistency he urged the re- 
moval of the deposits to prevent their use for political pur- 
poses. ^ Jackson himself feared the effect of loans and legal 
retainers to members of the Congress. In all these suspicions 

* Cooper to Biddle, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 208. 
2 Globe, March 23. 1833. 

8 Catterall, Second Bank of the United States, 290. 

* Hamilton's Reminiscences, 251. 

' Kendall's Autobiography, 374-75. 



292 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

there was ample justification.^ It did not require much, 
knowing as he did the character of the banker, to persuade 
Jackson that his duty was plain, and during the winter and 
spring of 1833 he was in frequent consultation with Roger 
Taney, Amos Kendall, and Frank Blair, the three men respon- 
sible for the step he took. 

During these days of mysterious conferences, the conserv- 
ative members of the Cabinet, and Van Buren with the 
traditional timidity of the candidate, were gravely concerned. 
To none was the prospect more appalling than to Louis Mc- 
Lane, then Secretary of the Treasury, a conservative, a for- 
mer Federalist, and a prospective candidate for the Presi- 
dency. In his anxiety he sent for Kendall, avowed his doubts, 
and asked for information. In the end he frankly confessed 
that he was not satisfied as to the wisdom of the step, but 
that he would execute the plan if called upon to do so by the 
President. The interview was friendly, and Kendall returned 
to his oflBce and prepared, for McLane's edification, an elab- 
orate argument in favor of the removal. It is characteristic 
of Kendall that, while the paper lightly touched upon the 
alleged insecurity of the deposits, the greater part of the pa- 
per was a discussion of the political effect. The hostility of 
the Bank to the Administration, he thought, could not be 
intensified. If the deposits were placed with the State banks, 
they would become partisans of the Administration. The 
people of the Southern and Western States would be pleased, 
and the New York banks, always jealous of the financial 
preeminence of Philadelphia, would at least secretly rejoice. 
The New England States were not concerned, one way or the 
other, and could be safely ignored. And in the end, Kendall in- 
sisted that a failure to remove the deposits would make a re- 
charter certain. That this letter, written March 16, 1833, was 
promptly placed in the hands of Van Buren, who was McLane's 
sponsor in the Administration, there can be no doubt. 

^ * See Theodore Roosevelt's Lije of Benton, 103 and 110, on Biddle's character. 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 293 

The aftermath of the letter came a few days later, when 
Van Buren, meeting Kendall at a White House dinner, 
warmly protested against the plans of the Kitchen Cabinet. 
The genius of that famous group rose from the table in his 
excitement, declared that failure to remove the deposits made 
a Whig victory certain in 1836, and that he was prepared to 
lay down his pen. "I can live under a corrupt despotism," 
he exclaimed, "as well as any other man by keeping out of its 
way, which I shall certainly do." ^ It was the Vice-President 
and not the auditor of the Treasury who afterwards apolo- 
gized. 

It was under these conditions that Jackson propounded a 
series of questions to his Cabinet, with a preliminary state- 
ment that he favored the removal. The first count of noses 
in the official household showed Livingston and Cass for the 
Bank, Barry and Taney against it, with Woodbury hedging. 
McLane, having greater responsibility as the head of the 
Treasury, took two months in the preparation of an ex- 
haustive reply opposing the removal, and his argument was 
afterwards to be used against the Administration. 

A month after Congress had adjourned there was a relax- 
ation of tension in Bank circles and among the conserva- 
tives of the Administration party, who assumed that nothing 
would be done during the congressional recess. The hostility 
of a majority of the Cabinet had not abated, and Biddle 
thought that the deposits were safe. 

But if the oflScial Cabinet was to hear no more, for months, 
of the proposed removal, the Kitchen Cabinet went into 
almost continuous session for the consideration of this one 
subject. The disposal of the deposits, and the time for mak- 
ing the removal, were the principal subjects discussed during 
those spring days in the White House, and it required but 
little discussion to determine upon the time. Hugh Lawson 
White strongly urged the postponement of action until 

* Kendall's Autobiography, 



294 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Congress convened, but this was instantly overruled by 
Taney and Kendall, who urged a recess removal for different 
reasons. The Attorney-General favored such action "be- 
cause it is desirable that the members should be among their 
constituents when the measure is announced, and should 
bring with them when they come here, the feelings and sen- 
timents of the people." ^ Kendall suggested another reason, 
also political. The conservatives had made some impression 
on Jackson's mind with the warning that, if he removed 
the deposits. Congress would order them restored, and he 
appealed to Kendall for his opinion. "If I were certain," 
said Kendall, "that Congress would direct them to be re- 
stored, still they ought to be removed, and any order by 
Congress for their restoration disregarded; for it is the only 
means by which this embodiment of power which aims to 
govern Congress and the country can be destroyed." And, 
to this militant advice, he added his reasons for favoring the 
removal during the congressional recess. "Let the removal 
take place so early as to give us several months to defend 
the measure in the ' Globe,' and we will bring up the people 
to sustain you with a power which Congress dare not resist." ^ 

Meanwhile Duane had reached Washington and assumed 
his duties. Soon after his arrival, Kendall was surprised to 
find him loath to discuss the removal, and when the story 
of this reticence was carried to Jackson, he explained to his 
Secretary of the Treasury what was wanted. When Duane 
demurred, he was told to take his time and report on the 
President's return from New England. By this time Amos 
Kendall had assumed the leadership, and he was instructed 
to interview the head of the Treasury during Jackson's 
absence. 

At this time Van Buren, waiting in New York to join his 

1 Taney's letter to Jackson at Rip Raps in August thus referred to this advice 
previously given. (Tyler's Ldfe of Taney.) 
^ Kendall's Autobiography, 376. 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 295 

chief on his tour, was blissfully ignorant of the embarrass- 
ments that awaited him until he received a letter written on 
the day Jackson set forth on his journey. "The Bank and 
change of deposits have engrossed my mind much," he 
wrote; "it is a perplexing subject, and I wish your opinion 
before I finally act." Three days later, while Jackson was 
receiving the plaudits of the multitude, Kendall made the 
situation clear, in a letter to Van Buren, announcing that 
the removal had been determined upon and outlining the 
tentative plans. Nothing could have been more painful to 
the Vice-President, who had strongly urged that, with the 
veto of the recharter bill, the Bank be permitted quietly to 
go its way to the termination of its charter. 

in 

While Jackson between illnesses and ovations was bringing 
the power of his compelling personality to bear upon his pro- 
tege's timidity, Kendall was following instructions in Wash- 
ington in attempting to ascertain the intentions of Duane. 
In this he was wholly unsuccessful. Time and again the sub- 
ject was broached only to be brushed aside, and Jackson, 
constantly informed, had some savage moments while smiling 
urbanely upon the crowds. 

Reaching the capital on July 4th, he immediately sum- 
moned Duane to a conference. The Secretary, who had been 
ill, rose from a sick-bed and presented himself at the White 
House looking pale and feeble. At the sight of his wan 
adviser, the impulsive Jackson penitently grasped both his 
hands, reproved him for venturing forth in such a condition, 
and kindly postponed the interview until he had recovered.* 
After an absence of eight days Duane appeared at the White 
House again, with a lengthy letter setting forth his reasons 
for objecting to the removal until after Congress had been 
informed. Three days later, or on July 15th, another con- 

* Van Buren's Autobiography, 602, 



296 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ference between Jackson and his rebellious Secretary was 
held with Duane stubbornly holding his ground, and Jack- 
son kindness itself. In truth, it appears that, with the aid of 
McLane, Duane had succeeded in arousing some misgivings 
in Jackson's mind as to the possibility of persuading the State 
banks to accept the deposits. 

"Send me to ask them, and I will settle that question," 
said Kendall. 

"You shall go," Jackson replied. 

Summoning the unhappy Duane, the President announced 
a postponement of discussions until the attitude of the State 
banks could be ascertained. Kendall was to be the agent of 
the Treasury on a tour of investigation, and Duane was to 
prepare the necessary instructions. 

When these instructions were delivered to Kendall, he was 
amazed. They merely asked the opinions of the banks on 
the general question, and, in view of their well-established 
hostility, it was clear enough what the answer would be. 
Wrathfully hastening to the White House, Kendall bluntly 
refused to carry instructions so framed, declaring the sole 
purpose of the investigation should be to learn whether State 
banks would accept the deposits. He was told to prepare his 
own instructions, and thus the head of the Kitchen Cabinet 
sallied forth on his own terms. About the same time, Jack- 
son, in need of a rest and release from the sultry atmosphere 
of Washington, went to Rip Raps in Hampton Roads, where 
he was accustomed to relax in the summer, accompanied by 
Frank Blair. Thus, with one member of the Kitchen Cabi- 
net making a tour of the banks on his own instructions, an- 
other was at Jackson's elbow in the unconventional environ- 
ment of Rip Raps.^ All these various moves were promptly 
reported to Biddle by some member of the Administration, 
and on the day Kendall was expected in Philadelphia, the 

^ During this time Jackson was deluged by propaganda letters on behalf of the 
Bank from "friends." (Blair to Van Buren, Van Buren's Autobiography, 607.) 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 297 

financial autocrat was writing to Dr. Cooper, his new ally, 
in laudation of the firmness of Duane and the viciousness of 
the Kitchen Cabinet.^ 

Meanwhile, in his visits to the banks of Baltimore, Phila- 
delphia, New York, and Boston, Kendall was pulled and 
hauled and mauled by both the servitors of the Bank and the 
conservatives of the Administration circle. At Philadelphia 
it was hinted that a fortune was within his grasp if he would 
but avail himself of the opportunity. 2 There, too, he fell 
foul of James Gordon Bennett, then editor of the "Penn- 
sylvanian," whose mask of cordiality was dropped in the 
publication of Kendall's private letters showing hostility to 
the Bank — as though private letters were necessary to the 
proof. ^ 

But more significant, and politically more important, was 
Kendall's interview with Van Buren and McLane in New 
York City. The three met by chance in the breakfast room 
of an hotel, and in an interview, then arranged, it was pro- 
posed by the hedging politicians that the removal of the 
deposits be postponed until January when Congress would 
be in session. This plan originated with McLane, and Ken- 
dall, who suspected it was proposed with the hope and ex- 
pectation that Congress would interpose, replied that he 
would be satisfied provided McLane, Duane, and the other 
Bank Democrats would agree to use their personal influence 
with members of Congress to have the deposits removed.^ 
It was agreed that all three should write Jackson at Rip 
Raps, and, in complying, Kendall said that the proposal was 
against his judgment, and Jackson instantly rejected it.^ 

Throughout July the Opposition and Bank papers were 
warning the public of the movement on foot, and the "In- 

* Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 214. 

* Kendall's Autohiographj. 

* Bennett soon afterwards established the New York Herald. 

* Significantly enough. Van Buren overlooks this incident in his Autobiography. 
' Kendall's Autobiography, 383. 



298 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

telligencer" was especially alarmed, dwelling at length on the 
rumor that Kendall was in Philadelphia before he had even 
left Washington. Blair was moved to mirth. He admitted 
that Kendall had been seen taking a stage, carrying with 
him "a large black trunk," and that, while he "looked char- 
itable, his intent may be wicked." Worse still, "the Editor 
of the 'Globe' left for the South two days before with 
baggage enough to last a man a lifetime." A mysterious, 
uncanny combination of events, he conceded, that "bodes to 
owners of U.S. Bank stock, who purchased at 50 per cent, 
no good." ^ 

This facetiousness enraged and alarmed the Opposition, 
and its press began to threaten to impeach Duane if he 
removed the deposits. Kendall was scourged with excoria- 
tions, and State banks were warned against taking the de- 
posits on pain of the displeasure of the Biddle institution. 
Papers under the influence of the Bank, but still posing as 
Jacksonian, were sure that Jackson "and his able Secretary 
of the Treasury" would "not be hurried or retarded in his 
important measure by the violent and indiscreet denuncia- 
tions and threats of any set of men," and would "act on the 
deposits at the proper time and in the proper way." ^ And 
Blair, catching the subtle suggestion of Bennett, hastened 
to assail him as having been "smuggled into the confidence 
of an unsuspecting Democracy as a friend of the cause " and 
as a "treacherous instrument of Webb and Biddle," who had 
"the impudence to propose by praise to flatter the President 
and his Cabinet to adopt the views of the Bank." ^ From 
his sanctum in the office of the "Albany Journal," Thurlow 
Weed, wisest of the Whig journalists, sent forth the threat 
of panic. "We are impatient for the removal," he wrote. 
"Nothing short of a general ruin will cure the people of 
their delusions, and the sooner it comes, the better." ^ 

1 Globe, July 31, 1833. * Pennsylvanian. ' Globe, Sept. 7, 1833. 

, * Blair carefully collected all such threats and published them in the Globe. 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 299 

IV 

Meanwhile Jackson at Rip Raps was in daily conference 
with Frank Blair on the problems of the removal. All this 
time Blair was creating the impression in the "Globe" that 
the President's sole thought was the recovery of his health. 
The sea air was "proving advantageous," his appetite better, 
his strength returning. Nothing was more remote from the 
thoughts of Jackson. The situation was delicate and po- 
litically mixed. The Cabinet was, for the most part, hostile. 
Conservative Democrats were terrified at the thought of 
such radical action, and feared the complete disruption of the 
party and its defeat in 1836. Kendall does not misstate the 
conditions when he says that "the ambitious politicians who 
still surrounded General Jackson, trembled in their knees, and 
were ready to fly," and that "almost the only fearless and 
determined supporters he had around him were Mr. Taney, 
the editor of the 'Globe,' and its few contributors."^ The 
brilliant, but ultra-conservative Ritchie, of the "Richmond 
Enquirer," feared that the party would "rue the precipitate 
step in sackcloth and ashes," and that it would "present 
inothing but a splendid ruin." ^ 

1 Painful as the situation was to all conservatives, it was 
maddening to Van Buren, who thought he saw the Presi- 
dency slipping from his grasp. In his desire to get as far away 
las possible, he was planning a month's outing with Washing- 
ton Irving among the Dutch settlements of Long Island and 
the North River, when a letter reached him from Jackson 
calling upon him to take a stand. His reply, under date of 
August 19th, would have pleased Talleyrand. Having great 
ponfidence in Silas Wright, Senator from New York, he 
iwrote that he would confer with him and then formulate his 
views. A little later he wrote that he and Wright favored 

^ Kendall's Aviobiography, 391. 

' Letter to Stevenson, in Ambler's Thomas Ritchie, 160. 



300 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the McLane plan. The tone of sharp surprise in Jackson's 
response alarmed the hard-pressed heir apparent, and he 
hastily wrote that he would yield to the wisdom of Jackson. 
But his troubles were not over. Another letter from Jackson, 
more alarming still, pursued him to poison his vacation, sum- 
moning him to Washington for a consultation. The cunning 
politician never faced a more painful problem. He could not 
afford to break with the all-powerful party dictator in the 
White House — that would be to abandon the Presidency. 
Nor was he at all certain that he could afford to become in- 
timately identified with the desperate enterprise upon which 
the chief was determined to embark. The one would de- 
prive him of the nomination of his party; the other might 
make that nomination worthless. The campaign of 1836 
was already in full swing, and the Opposition was insinuating 
a directing influence between the most unpopular measures 
of the Administration and Van Buren. Timid and cautious 
by temperament, his peculiar situation accentuated these 
traits in the candidate, and the summons to the seat of war 
sounded to him like the crack of doom. 

But he was equal to the crisis. Writing at once of his 
willingness to respond if Jackson thought best, he feared his 
presence in Washington at the time of the withdrawal would 
dim the prestige of the act by giving it the appearance of 
having been inspired by the moneyed interests of New York.^ 
Having painted this thought, he added some lines for the 
protection of Louis McLane, his friend. He was fearful that, 
on the resignation of Duane, McLane might feel that he 
should also tender his, and that would be a pity. Would it 
not be a good idea, in the event the resignation were offered, 
to reply that "you confide in him &c, notwithstanding the 
difference between you on this point, and that if he could 

* Biddle was trying to make it appear that the real fight was " between Chest- 
nut Street and Wall Street — between a Faro Bank and a National Bank,' aS 
shown in his letter to Dr. Cooper. {Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 209.) 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 301 

consistently remain in the Administration, you would be 
gratified?" That the suspicious Jackson was deceived is 
highly improbable, albeit where his affections were involved, 
as in the case of Van Buren, his vision was apt to be occasion- 
ally defective. 

But Van Buren and his advice were not needed, for a 
stronger man, with courage and an iron will equal to his own, 
was moving to the side of Jackson. Throughout the months 
of conferences and discussions the one member of his oflScial 
Cabinet who was in whole-hearted sympathy with the wishes 
of the Kitchen Cabinet was Roger Taney, the Attorney-Gen- 
eral. Before leaving for Rip Raps, Jackson had discussed 
with him the steps to be taken in the event of a definite re- 
fusal from Duane to order the removal, and had intimated 
that he would transfer Taney to the office of the Secretary of 
the Treasury. Just about the time Jackson was puzzling over 
the peculiar hedging of Van Buren, he received a letter from 
Taney that delighted him. The latter reiterated his convic- 
tion that the deposits should be removed, and during the 
congressional recess. He was sure "the powerful and cor- 
rupting monopoly" would "be fatal to the liberties of the 
people" unless destroyed, and Jackson alone could encom- 
pass its destruction. The President had "already done more 
than any other man has done, or could do, to preserve the 
simplicity and purity of our institutions, and to guard the 
country from this dangerous and powerful instrument of 
corruption." He had "doubted" whether Jackson's friends 
and the country had the right to ask him "to bear the brunt 
of such a conflict as the removal of the deposits under pres- 
ent conditions is likely to produce." He had no desire for 
the secretaryship of the Treasury, but he "would not shrink 
from the responsibility" if, in the President's judgment, "the 
public exigency would require" him to undertake it.^ Here 
was a man quite as persuasive in his flattery as Van Buren, 

» Tyler's Lt/e 0/ Taney. 



302 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

and prepared, as Van Buren was not, to stake his future upon 
an aggressive support of the removal. 

For the time being, then, exit Van Buren. 
: Enter Roger B. Taney. 

By this time Jackson's mind was thoroughly made up. 
The tour of Kendall had not been a complete success. The 
banks were timid and fearful of the power of "The Monster." 
Catterall credits the report that Kendall himself had con- 
cluded the plan unwise, and had admitted to Jackson that 
*'the project of removing the deposits must be given up." ^ 
This advice, if given, ^ came too late. The old military leader 
was in the saddle, war was declared, retreat was defeat. 
Thus, a few days after receiving Taney's letter, Jackson 
wrote him that he had considered the probability that Con- 
gress would attempt to overawe liim, and had determined 
that, when Duane withdrew, Taney should step into the 
place and conduct the affairs of the Treasury until toward 
the close of the next session of Congress, when the battle 
would have been won or lost, and the refusal of the Senate to 
confirm Taney's nomination would not interfere. He was 
only awaiting proof of the expenditure of $40,000 of Bank 
money in the campaign. With this proof, of which he had 
no doubt, he would feel justified in removing the deposits. 
The Bank might "rebel against our power, and even refuse 
to pay to the order of the Government the public money in its 
vaults, and lay claim to all the money that remains uncalled 
for on the books of the loan oflfice." Everywhere he found 
the "assumed power of this monster." This pretension must 
be challenged and tested, and he had no doubt of being "sus- 
tained by the people." ' 

Thus the die was definitely cast at Rip Raps early in Sep- 
tember, and Jackson returned to Washington determined to 
force the fighting. 

» Catterall, Second Bank of the United States, 203. 

* Kendall, in his Autobiography, gives no hint of such discouragement or advice. 

» Letter in Tyler's Life of Taney. 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 303 

V 

As soon as he reached the capital, he began to press Duane 
more insistently, with the Secretary stubbornly refusing to 
budge. Some time before he had voluntarily given the 
assurance that if the President should determine upon the 
course outlined, and he should be unable to comply, he would 
promptly tender his resignation. The President's intentions 
were now thoroughly understood, but Duane gave no indica- 
tion of a disposition to relinquish his post, and the pro-Bank 
papers were decorating him with laurels. The first covert 
attack upon him from Administration circles appeared in the 
*' Globe" of September 12th, when Blair, taking cognizance 
of an article in the "Baltimore Chronicle," denounced it as a 
"slanderer of Mr. Duane." "Would the 'Chronicle' convert 
the Secretary of the Treasury into a Bank officer, and have 
him communicating to the corporation what belongs only 
to his relations with the President?" Even Duane could 
not have mistaken the implication. Five days after this 
article appeared, the Cabinet was convened, and Jackson 
took the opinion of his advisers. McLane, Duane, and Cass 
were against the step, with Taney, Barry, and Woodbury 
(who had previously hedged) , favoring it. 

On the following day the Cabinet was again convened to 
hear the President's reasons for his determination, set forth 
in the famous "Paper Read to the Cabinet." This docu- 
ment, as read, had been revised and rewritten from the notes 
sent by Jackson from his retreat at Hampton Roads to 
Taney, and was to become the storm center of congressional 
controversy, although it did not concern the Congress in the 
least. Beginning with a confession of a fixed hostility to the 
Bank on the conviction of its unconstitutionality and danger 
to the liberties of the people, he elaborately reviewed the 
charter controversy. The people had passed upon his con- 
duct at the polls and he had been overwhelmingly vindicated. 



i 



S04 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

The Nation, therefore, having definitely decided on the 
abandonment of the Bank as a place of deposit, some 
method should be devised for the future deposit of the public 
funds before the expiration of the charter. Under the law, 
the Secretary of the Treasury could withdraw the deposits 
whenever he saw fit, provided he informed Congress of his 
act at the earliest opportunity. To leave the deposits with 
the Bank until the day of the expiration of the charter with 
the expectation of making the transfer to some other deposi- 
tory at once would mean "serious inconvenience to the Gov- 
ernment and people." Such work, he thought, "ought not 
to be the work of months only, but of years," for otherwise 
"much suffering and distress would be brought upon the 
people." These considerations alone, he thought sufficient 
to justify the step he proposed. 

But in the conduct of the Bank additional and more press- 
ing reasons could be found. Knowing of the Government's 
decision to appropriate the greater part of its deposits during 
1832 to the payment of the public debt, the Bank, in the 
sixteen months preceding May, 1832, had extended its loans 
more than $28,000,000, and the maximum of the extension 
had been made in May. And two months before that, the 
Bank had so perfectly understood its inability to pay over 
the public deposits when called upon, that it had secretly 
negotiated with foreign holders of the three per cent stock a 
year's postponement of a demand for payment after notice 
should be given by the Government. "This effort to thwart 
the Government in the payment of the public debt," he said, 
"that it might retain the public money to be used for their 
private interests, palliated by pretenses notoriously un- 
founded and insincere, would have justified the instant with- 
drawal of the public deposits." 

Since the congressional report in favor of the Bank, other 
things had occurred that would surely alter the opinion of 
the lawmakers. " The fact that the Bank controls, and in some 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 305 

cases substantially owns, and by its money supports, some 
of the leading presses of the country, is now more clearly es- 
tablished." Extravagant sums had been loaned to editors on 
unusual time and nominal security in 1831 and 1832. And 
the proceedings and management of the Bank had been un- 
usual and indefensible. The terms of the charter had been 
violated; and when Government directors undertook to re- 
store methods in conformity with the terms of the charter, 
they had been disregarded. Worse still : the most important 
transactions involving the credit of the Bank had been turned 
over to Biddle, and the committees left in utter ignorance of 
what he was doing. He had been given unlimited authority 
in the use of the Bank's money for propaganda purposes. 
Thousands of dollars had been squandered in the printing 
of speeches and pamphlets, not only defending the Bank, but 
attacking the chosen representatives of the people. If, as 
claimed, the Bank could bring distress and chaos in retalia- 
tion, all the more reason for breaking the power of the tyran- 
nical institution. And he closed by fixing October 1st as the 
day for action. 

As the members of the Cabinet sat in the White House that 
day under conflicting emotions, all appreciating the seriousness 
of the step, and some contemplating the closing of a career, 
there could have been none unmindful of the fact that the 
Paper was intended less for them than for the public. It was 
characteristic of Jackson in preparing his ground for a fight 
to speak over the heads of both Cabinet and Congress to the 
people. That Kendall and Blair were in large part responsible 
for the original draft which reached Taney for revision, there 
can be no doubt. 

Knowing the real purpose of the Paper, Duane requested a 

postponement of publication until he could definitely decide. 

While the Paper was being put in type at the "Globe" 

\ office, McLane and Cass threatened to resign rather than 

; accept any responsibility for the act, and Lewis suggested that 



306 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

they be publicly relieved of responsibility. When Blair has- 
tened to Jackson with Lewis's suggestion, the grim man of 
iron added the concluding paragraph assuming full personal 
responsibility — much to the chagrin and disgust of Taney. ^ 

The crisis had now been reached, and the action of Duane 
was awaited by the Kitchen Cabinet with the keenest inter- 
est, not unmixed with fear lest Taney decline to take the 
vacant place and face the bitter fight. Taking counsel of his 
fears, Kendall rushed to the Attorney-General and was re- 
assured. Confessing his fear that his acceptance would mean 
the end of his lifelong hopes for a place on the Supreme 
Bench, Taney declared himself in the fight to the end.^ 

On September 21st, the "Globe" authoritatively an- 
nounced that "the deposits would be changed to State banks" 
as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made; and 
in anticipation of the nature of the war the Bank would wage, 
Blair stressed the fact that the deposits would not be imme- 
diately withdrawn, and that the process would be gradual. 
**It is believed," he wrote, "that by this means the change 
need not produce any inconvenience to the commercial com- 
munity." 

Four days later the " Paper Read to the Cabmet " appeared 
in full in the "Globe." 

VI 

Two days after this publication, Major Lewis wrote 
Hamilton that "if Mr. Duane cannot or will not make the 
order," he would be superseded by Taney, "who has been 
decidedly with the President in relation to this matter from 
the beginning to the end," and discrediting rumors of other 
Cabinet resignations.^ Whatever may have been the feelings 
of Hamilton, who looked upon the plan as fraught with pos- 
sibihties of disaster, the effect of the "Globe's" announce- 

* The story of the added paragraph is told in Tyler's Life of Taney. 

• Kendall's Autobiography, 386. • Hamilton's Reminiscences, 266. 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 307 

ment on Thomas H. Benton, sojourning with relatives in 
Virginia, was that of a bugle blast to a war charger. He felt 
*'an emotion of the moral sublime at beholding such an in- 
stance of civic heroism," and that "a great blow had been 
struck, and that a great contest must come on, which could 
only be crowned with success by acting up to the spirit with 
which it was commenced." He "repaired to Washington at 
the approach of the session with a full determination to stand 
by the President." ^ 

The day after the reading of the Paper, Jackson called 
upon Duane for a decision, and the Secretary begged for 
time to confer with his venerable father, then en route to 
Washington. The same day Major Donelson, the President's 
secretary, informed him of the decision to publish the Paper 
in the "Globe" on the morrow, and the hard-pressed Minis- 
ter protested against such precipitancy. This protest was 
followed with a letter to Donelson reiterating his plea for 
time, with the assertion that if he were President he would 
"consult at least reasonably the feelings of a man who has 
already anxiety enough." ^ Jackson had, in fact, exercised a 
most unnatural restraint of his temper, and had been re- 
markably considerate of his Minister's feelings. Even be- 
fore the reading of the Paper, and before Duane had made 
his choice for martyrdom, Jackson had opened a graceful 
avenue of escape to the Legation at St. Petersburg, but the 
offer had been declined. 

On the 21st, Duane appeared at the White House and left 
his written decision with Jackson personally. It is a letter 
of many words, evidently prepared for publication. After 
asserting that the Secretary of the Treasury is, by the terms 
of the charter, the sole custodian of the public funds, he 
finally reached his reasons for refusing to "carry your di- 

^ Benton's Thirty Years' View, i, 379. 

^ These notes are incorporated in the 5th Exhibit accompanying Duane's Address 
to the People of the United States, 



308 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

rections into effect." It would be a "breach of public faith," 
would appear as "vindictive and arbitrary," and "if the 
Bank has abused or perverted its powers, the judiciary are 
able and willing to punish." The House of Representa- 
tives had declared the funds safe, and, if anything had hap- 
pened since its report, "the representatives of the people, 
chosen since your appeal to them in your veto message, 
will in a few weeks assemble." Again, "a change to local 
and irresponsible banks will tend to shake public confi- 
dence," and "it is not sound policy to foster local banks." 
And so on with other reasons, including the charge that "per- 
sons and presses known to be in the confidence and pay of the 
Administration" had tried to intimidate him. There could 
be no misunderstanding of the purpose of the letter. It was 
written in a spirit bitterly hostile to the Administration, and 
in the hope of serving the moneyed institution and having 
the service rewarded.^ Having thus insulted the President, he 
withdrew his promise of July to resign if unable to meet his 
chief's views, and carefully pointed out that Jackson had the 
power of dismissal. Here was a martyr zealously seeking 
the cross. 

Jackson immediately wrote a brief, dignified reply to the 
effect that he could not receive such a communication, nor 
"enter into further discussion of the question." Rather 
sharply, the grim old man reminded his subordinate that the 
imputation in the latter's letter had no place in a correspond- 
ence between a President and a member of his Cabinet, that 
the letter of July offering to resign was before him, and 
brusquely demanding a final answer. Early in the afternoon 
Duane again took his pen in hand. The result was another 
tiresome letter concluding with a distinct refusal to issue the 
order or to resign, and impudently protesting against the in- 
terference of the Executive in the affairs of a member of the 
Cabinet. This second letter could hardly have reached the 

^* Kendall charges that Duane hoped to "feather his nest." (Autobiography, 385.) 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 309 

White House when Duane, seized with a perfect passion for 
self-expression, wrote a' third "to present another view." 
The burden of this epistle was that he had been treated un- 
kindly by the "Globe." Having started this upon its way 
by messenger, the superheated Secretary grasped his pen for 
another effort, consisting of painful reiterations. All these 
letters, thousands of words, and pages of paper, were written 
on the 21st, but with the exception of the reply to the first, 
Jackson ignored them. Then, two days later, Jackson wrote 
a short note, returning the last two letters as containing 
inaccuracies and being inadmissible, and closing with a curt 
dismissal. Thus Duane laid down his pen, packed his belong- 
ings, and passed out of public life.^ 

The day following Duane's dismissal, written by Taney, 
Cass and McLane consulted Jackson as to the desirability 
of their resignations. This was almost too much for the old 
warrior's patience, and he irritably reminded them that they 
had been released from responsibility, and could remain un- 
less they preferred to join the Opposition. The fire of battle 
was now in his blood, and he had no intention of parleying 
with the timid in his official household. Three days later, 
Taney issued his famous order, McLane and Cass tendered 
their resignations, and Jackson, in replying, followed Van 
Buren's suggestion, and they remained. 

On the publication of the Paper in the "Globe," the Bank 
summoned a meeting of the directors and a committee was 
appointed to take action. Writing from Boston to Biddle, 
Webster made the suggestion, which was adopted, of a memo- 
rial to Congress. 2 This memorial, which referred to the Pres- 
ident of the United States as "Andrew Jackson," indicated a 
disposition to consider the approaching struggle as between 
"Andrew Jackson" and Nicholas Biddle, between the Bank 
and the Admmistration, and the ill-advised arrogance of the 

* He served the Bank feebly during the fight that followed. 
' Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 216. . 



310 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

paper showed all too clearly that the financiers felt that in 
such a contest the power and the victory would be on the 
side of the Bank. And such was the prestige of that powerful 
corporation that not a few Democrats, including friends and 
supporters of Jackson, shared in the feeling. When Van Bu- 
ren was authorized by Jackson to offer the attorney-general- 
ship to Daniel of Virginia, that timid lawyer admitted that 
his fears of Jackson's rashness and situation dissuaded him.^ 
It was not until early in November that Benjamin F. Butler, 
yielding to the personal persuasion of Van Buren, accepted 
the post. And to obtain his consent it was necessary to 
appeal to personal friendship, private interest, pecuniary 
benefit, and the allurements of fame.^ 
And almost immediately the storm broke. 

vn 

"The times will be hard, and the struggle a great one," 
wrote Van Buren to Hamilton, "but the patriotism and for- 
titude of the people will triumph." ^ And Nicholas Biddle did 
not propose that the inconvenience should be slight. He was 
delighted with the order for the removal. He was convinced 
that out of the distress in business circles would come an irre- 
sistible demand, not only for the restoration of the deposits, 
but for the rechartering of the Bank. This last act of 
Jackson's was the golden opportunity. The advantage 
would be followed. The public, which had sustained Jack- 
son at the polls, was to be punished, or "disciplined,'* 
as Webster mildly described the process. "This discipline," 
wrote the orator to Biddle, who was his client as well as 
his party colleague, "it appears to me, must have very great 

* Van Buren's first choice was John Forsyth, or some Southerner, "if he is a 
speaking man." (Autobiography, G06.) He tells of Daniel's timidity in his PoLitical 
Parties in the United States, 322. 

2 See Van Buren's letter to Butler, in William Allen Butler'a A Retrospect of 
Forty Years, 39-43. 

' Hamilton's Reminiscences, 280. 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 311 

effects on the general question of the rechartering of the 
Bank." 

The "disciplining" of the people began with the Bank's 
first curtailments on August 13, 1833, and practically ended 
on July 11, 1834, although it continued to some extent until 
September. The first move — a proper one — was to issue 
an order that the amount of money loaned on discounts was 
not to be increased, and that bills of exchange should be 
drawn only at short dates and on the Eastern offices. These 
orders meant inevitable contraction, but of the sort that 
could be justified. But immediately after Taney had issued 
his order, the Bank adopted additional measures — the re- 
duction of discounts, the application of the order of restric- 
tion on the drawing of bills to all the offices of the Bank, the 
collection of the balances against the State banks, and the 
restriction of the receipt of State bank notes. The historian 
of the Bank truly says that "on the whole, nothing but peril 
to the Bank could excuse such measures." ^ But even this 
second step seemed all too mild to the officers and directors 
in the marble front building on Chestnut Street, and three 
weeks later a third step was taken. The branch banks in the 
West were ordered to persevere in "the course of measures 
already prescribed," and instructed that an extraordinary 
effort should be made to keep down circulation, and to avoid 
drafts on the northern Atlantic offices.^ One month later, 
Philip Hone, the New York banker and business man, was 
recording in his diary that the "ill-advised and arbitrary 
step of the President" was "producing an awful scarcity of 
money, with immediate distress and melancholy forebodings 
to the merchants and others who require credit to sustain 
them"; and that "stocks of every description have fallen — 
Delaware and Hudson from one hundred and twenty-five to 
one hundred and fourteen, Boston and Providence from one 
hundred and fifteen to one hundred and three," and that 

.* Catterall, Second Bank of the United States. 318. « Ibid. 



312 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD* 

"money cannot be had on bond and mortgage at 7 per cent, 
and I am told that good notes will hardly be discounted at 
9 per cent." ^ 

Just about the time Hone was recording these condi- 
tions, Biddle was offering the notorious Samuel Swartwout, 
the Jacksonian Collector in New York, whose irregularities 
in office were to be unmercifully exploited by the Whigs, a 
directorship in the Bank, and the latter, declining because of 
the onerous duties of his office, advised that since " the Bank's 
power has been shown" in the distress, it might be well now 
to manifest mercy. ^ Where Niles had found money scarce 
in September and October without being able to conceive a 
reason, he wrote in November of "a most severe pressure 
for money" and the prospect of a "collapse of business." 
That month State bank notes began to depreciate and loans 
were at eighteen per cent per annum. With the convening 
of Congress and the President's uncompromising Message 
in December, Biddle increased the pressure for the purposes 
of "discipline." Business men were unable to get credit. 
Factories were shutting down because of the inability of 
manufacturers to get loans, and laborers were thrown out 
into the street. The Christmas season found New York 
"gloomy" with "times bad," stocks still falling, and a panic 
prevailing "which will result in bankruptcies and ruin in 
many quarters where, a few short weeks ago, the sun of 
prosperity shone with unusual brightness." * And three days 
later the Lord Holland of the American Whigs, in his 
misery and apprehension, was beginning to suspect that poli- 
tics and the Bank, as well as Jackson's "ill-advised and 
arbitrary step," might be playing a part, and concluding 
that "between them both the community groans under the 
distress which these misunderstandings have created." "A 
plague on both your houses," he wrote, his impartial cas- 

1 Diary, Nov. 18, 1833. « Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 218. 

' Hone's Diary, Dec. 27, 1833. - 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 313 

tigation springing, perhaps, from the fact that he had lost 
$20,000.1 

In January the crash came. Business houses began to fail 
in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and by the end 
of the month loans could not be had in New York and Balti- 
more at less than one and a half per cent discount per month. 
Wages decreased, along with prices, with laborers out of em- 
ployment and the real estate values on the slump. And at 
this time, with the Opposition in Congress working in hearty 
cooperation with the Bank to create the fear that fed the 
panic, Jackson sat in the White House one Sunday morning 
writing to Hamilton: "There is no real distress. It is only 
with those who live by borrowing, trade on loans, and gam- 
blers in stocks. It would be a godsend to society if all such 
were put down ... I must stop. The church bells are ring- 
ing and I must attend." ^ This theory that it would be a 
"godsend" to rid the country of the men who live on bor- 
rowing was to be used with considerable efiFect against Jack- 
son by his congressional enemies. 

And at the same time, Biddle was writing to the president 
of his Boston branch ^ that "the ties of party allegiance can 
only be broken by the actual conviction of existing distress," 
and that "nothing but the evidence of suffering abroad will 
produce any effect in Congress": and to Major Jack Down- 
ing in New York that "if the bank were to suffer itself to be 
misled into the measure of making money plentiful, it will 
only give to its enemies the triumph of having robbed it with 
impunity." ^ Thus the evidence is abundant that the Bank 
exerted its power to the utmost to bring the country to the 
verge of ruin, and so compel it to consent to a recharter. The 
fact that the majority of its victims were among its most 
zealous supporters did not interest Mr. Biddle. ^ Two days 

1 Hone's Diary, Dec. SO, 1833. 2 Hamilton's Reminiscences, 270. 

« William Appleton. * Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 219. 

* Catterall severely criticizes the banker for this attitude; for Catterall's righteous 
sentence on this state of mind, see Second Bank of the United States, 229. 



314 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

after writing the letter to Downing, Biddle determined upon 
a further contraction in discounts to the amount of $3,320,- 
000, with orders that this should be made within thirty or 
sixty days, and the largest reductions were to be made in the 
Western and Southwestern banks. Not content with this, 
he made another increase in the rates of exchange, and here 
again discriminated frankly against the West. Thus, in 
eight months the Bank planned a reduction in discounts to 
the amount of $13,300,000, which Catterall describes truly 
as " a preposterously large sum." ^ When to this is added the 
further restrictions of as much as $5,000,000 through the 
breaking up of the exchange dealings of the Bank, the con- 
traction in eight months amounted to at least $18,300,000. 
Had the Bank acted honorably, there would have been an 
inevitable depression for the time because of the removal 
order, but the panic was the Bank's panic, deliberately con- 
ceived, and cruelly produced, with the frankly avowed pur- 
pose of blackmailing the American people into granting 
another charter. In his letter to the president of the Boston 
branch, Biddle had bluntly confessed his purpose. "I have 
no doubt," he wrote, "that such a course will ultimately 
lead to a restoration of the currency, and the recharter of the 
Bank. "2 

During this time there were certain unscrupulous specu- 
lators, the buzzards of the panic, whispering commendation 
into Biddle's ear while feathering their own nests through 
the distress of the people.' But Webster, alarmed at the 
havoc, had urged Biddle, through Horace Binney, "that the 
Bank ought to reduce as slowly and moderately as they can 
— and occasionally to ease off — where it is requisite to pre- 
vent extreme suffering." ^ This advice aroused the banker*s 
ire and resulted in no good. It was Biddle's idea that the 

* Second Bank of the United States, 321. 

* Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 219. 

• Notably James Watson Webb. 

• Binney to Biddle, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 220. ' 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 315 

Bank's senatorial champions, instead of suggesting a policy 
of moderation, should be using the distress as an argument 
for a new charter. "The relief," he wrote Joseph Hopkinson, 
the distinguished lawyer and jurist, "to be useful or per- 
manent, must come from Congress, and from Congress 
alone. If that body will do its duty, relief will come — if not, 
the Bank feels no vocation to redress the wrongs of these 
miserable people. Rely upon that. This worthy President 
thinks that because he has scalped Indians and imprisoned 
Judges, he is to have his way with the Bank. He is mis- 
taken." 1 

vni 

Meanwhile the Bank was encouraging, inspiring, arranging 
indignation meetings of the people, where Jackson was ar- 
raigned for bringing ruin upon the community, and petitions 
were drawn asking for the restoration of the deposits. Clay, 
eager to lash the people into fury, had suggested the plan. 
"It would be well," he wrote, "to have a general meeting of 
the people to memorialize Congress in favor of a restoration 
of the deposits. Such an example [in Philadelphia] might be 
followed elsewhere; and it would be more influential as it 
might be more general." ^ The artificial nature of many of 
the petitions was well understood by the Jackson leaders, and 
the usually elegant John Forsyth had referred to them in the 
Senate as "these pot-house memorials," much to the aston- 
ishment of Adams. ^ These petitions, according to the plan, 
were, in many instances, taken to Washington by committees 
that waited upon the President before presenting them to 
I Congress. Here they were presented in lugubrious speeches 
I calculatingly designed further to fan the fears of the people 
• and keep the panic going. When the New York merchants 
adopted a memorial and secured the signatures of three 

* Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 222. * Ibid., 218. 

' Memoirs, April 14, 1834. 



316 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

thousand people, Tammany Hall ordered meetings in every 
ward in the city to approve of Jackson's actions.^ A few days 
later, between twelve and fifteen thousand friends of "sound 
currency by means of a national bank" met at noon in the 
park. When Hone, selected to preside, reached the park, he 
found an "immense crowd" composed in large part "of the 
most respectable mechanics and others of the city — men of 
character, respectability, and personal worth, with a few mis- 
creants who went, perhaps, of their own accord, but were 
probably sent there to excite disturbances." In truth, "the 
rabble had gotten possession of the chair," and it required 
"some hard thumps" from the men of character, respect- 
ability, and personal worth to clear the way sufficiently for 
the presiding genius of the Whig dinner table to reach the 
platform. When he attempted to speak, the "yells of the 
mob" rendered all the chairman's efforts "unavailing"; so 
he "put the question upon the resolutions which were car- 
ried by an immense majority," and the meeting adjourned. 
Unhappily the "mob" did not disperse for some time after- 
wards. ^ 

When these committees, composed of bitter enemies of the 
President, began to pour into the capital and knock at the 
White House door, they were received, at first, with urbanity 
and heard with patience. The committeemen, however, 
carried back "grossly colored" stories of the interviews, and 
Jackson thereafter decided to hear and dismiss them without 
discussion.^ In these stories Jackson is pictured as raving 
and ranting, spluttering and spouting imprecations and pro- 
fanity. McMaster, however, accepts as true that he received 
these committees "with that stately courtesy for which he 
was so justly distinguished," and concludes from the evi- 
dence that he "soon began to lecture them." ^ In these lec- 
tures Jackson is reported to have told the committees to "go 

1 Hone's Diary. Jan. 28. 1834. « /^i^^ pgb 7^ i834. 

' Kendall's Autobiography, 411. * History of the United States, iv, 201. 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 317 

to the Bank" or to "go to Biddle" for relief. No less an 
authority than Catterall has concluded that he was not far 
wrong. On one occasion he did use extreme language to a 
committee which implied the threat of rebellion. "If that 
be your game," he exclaimed, "come with your armed Bank 
mercenaries, and, by the Eternal, I will hang you around the 
Capitol on gallows higher than Haman." ^ There is no doubt 
that he did harangue the committees with bitter denuncia- 
tions of "The Monster" and properly ascribed a large part 
of the distress to the deliberate purpose of the Bank to 
"discipline" the Nation. Some historians have suggested 
that these outbursts were staged, and it is recorded as a fact 
by Henry A. Wise, the brilliant Virginia Whig. "When a 
Bank committee would come . . ."he writes, "he would 
lay down his pipe, rise to the full height of his stature and 
voice, and seem to foam at the mouth whilst declaiming 
vehemently against the dangers of money monopoly. The 
committee would retire in disgust, thinking they were leav- 
ing a mad man, and as soon as they were gone, he would 
resume his pipe, and, chuckling, say, 'They thought I was 
mad,' and coolly comment on the policy of never never com- 
promising a vital issue." ^ This interpretation of Jackson's 
tempests and whirlwinds of passion, coming from a severe 
critic of his Bank policy, is the most dependable of all the 
opinions that have been expressed by friend or foe. 

rx 

And while the committees may have hooted the idea that 
the Bank was responsible for the severity and continuance 
of the panic, it very slowly began to dawn upon the New York 
merchants that possibly the "Emperor Nicholas" might be 
able to alleviate conditions without in the least compromis- 
ing the safety of the Bank. Some of his champions were slow 
to realize or loath to concede this declining popularity. In 

* Kendall's Autobiography, 412. } Seven Decades of the Union, 107. 



318 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD i, 

February the bankers and merchants of New York appointed 
a committee to wait upon him and urge a suspension of the 
contraction, and Albert Gallatin, former Secretary of the 
Treasury, pointedly warned him that the committee was > 
satisfied of his ability to grant relief, and would so report to i 
the New York merchants. Thus cornered and threatened ( 
with the desertion of its friends, the Bank finally agreed that 
up to May 1st there should be no further contraction. This i 
was a fatal concession in that it was a confession that relief 
had been previously deliberately denied.^ Even such cham- i 
pions of the Bank as James Watson Webb found real 
cause for melancholy complaint in heavy losses in Bank 
stock, and we find him whining that he had lost all except 
his paper, and that other speculators, including Alexander 
Hamilton, Jr., had been among the victims. 

Thus the drift against the Bank, which began when Gover- i 
nor Wolf of Pennsylvania denounced its actions in his Mes- | 
sage to the Legislature, increased alarmingly. The fact that Ij 
the Governor had been a firm supporter gave tremendous ! 
weight to his act. The friends of the institution were stunned, 
and, as we shall see a little later, the Governor was bitterly j 
denounced and warmly defended in the Senate. Thus the ( 
advice of Jackson to "see Biddle," so mirthfully related ! 
by the committees at the time, and so much ridiculed by 
some historians since, was demonstrating its wisdom. One 
month after Wolf acted. Governor Marcy of New York 
imitated his example with the recommendation of a State 
plan of relief. His proposal to issue $6,000,000 of five per cent 
State stock to be loaned to State banks was adopted. | 

The Bank, in its game of "disciplining" the people, had | 
vastly overplayed its hand, and, by its cruel, implacable j 
policy of ruining friends as well as foes, had begun to lose I 
ground in the late winter and early spring. Even among the 
ultra-conservatives of business, the feeling was germinating 

1 Catterall's view, Second Bank of tlie United States, 344. | 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 319 

that Jackson was not far wrong in the conclusion that a 
moneyed institution possessing the power to precipitate 
panics to influence governmental action, was dangerous to 
the peace, prosperity, and liberty of the people. 

X 

But the politicians in the Congress were the last to see the 
drift. Long after the bankers and merchants had lost interest 
in the fate of Biddle's Bank, they continued their fight in its 
behalf throughout the most bitter congressional session the 
Republic had ever known. The actions of the Bank, the tu- 
mult of the market-places, the proceedings of the merchants, 
are all intimately interwoven with the activities of the 
Bank's champions in House and Senate. There the last stand 
was taken, there the battle was definitely lost. And there the 
most dramatic feature of the fight was staged. It was at this 
juncture that three important figures, not hitherto intimately 
identified with or against the Administration, moved to the 
firing line. Thomas H. Benton assumed the leadership of the 
Jacksonian forces, and Clay's fighters were brilliantly aug- 
mented by the advent of two Senators, William Campbell 
Preston of South Carolina, and Benjamin Watkins Leigh of 
Virginia. 

The complete harmony between Benton's views and Jack- 
son's actions in the Bank controversy has given an over- 
shadowing prominence to his leadership. For thirty years he 
was a constructive force in legislation, associating his name 
with more important measures written into law than Clay, 
Webster, and Calhoun combined. In the Senate his faults of 
mannerism, his arrogance, and stupendous conceit, together 
with the interminable length of his speeches and his diffusive 
tendencies, served to overshadow his very substantial con- 
tributions to the discussions. The fact that the Chamber 
emptied and the galleries cleared when he arose did not dis- 
turb him in the least. He spoke from the Chamber to the 



320 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

j 

country, and his carefully prepared speeches, especially dur- ! 
ing the Bank fight, were treatises intended for the education 
of the people. His personal life was above reproach. His ; 
austerity, his imposing dignity, discouraged attempts at inti- j 
macy in a day when men loved conviviality and were a trifle i 
lax in their morals. He was one of the colossal figures of Amer- 
ican politics and he never loomed larger than in his fight for 
Jackson. | 

William C. Preston, fresh from oratorical triumphs in the ! 
Nullification contest, entered the Senate at the age of thirty- 
eight. Few have made a more favorable debut in that body. ' 
His fame as an orator had preceded him, and Clay's plans 
had dedicated the panic session to perfervid oratory. It is 
impossible to understand, from his speeches in the "Con- 
gressional Globe," the extravagant enthusiasm of so stern i 
a critic as Adams. But we cannot discount the common 
verdict of his contemporaries who considered him one of I 
the most consummate of orators, and "one of the great- 
est rhetoricians and declaimers of his generation." ^ From 
another we learn that "many thought him the most finished i 
orator the South had produced," and that he "could arouse 
his audiences to enthusiasm, and then move them to tears." ^ 
Not least among the truimphs of his art was his power to 
sway a mob in the street as well as move the case-hardened 
critics of the Senate house. Poet and painter, as he was, it is 
not surprising that in the heat of advocacy his feelings often 
predominated over his judgment, and his superheated im- 
agination sometimes led him beyond the realms of reality, 
but these very weaknesses were to delight the enemies of the i! 
Jackson Administration, led to the daily assault by Clay, j 
Thus, in his first year in the Senate, he took his place, far in 
advance of most of his colleagues, and side by side with Clay, 
Webster, Calhoun, and Clayton. ; 

In addition to Preston, the Opposition was to be further 

* Laborde. * Wilson's Washington the Capital City, i, 214. 



JACKSON VS. BIDDLE 321 

strengthened by the arrival with the panic session of Leigh. 
Intellectually, he was one of the strongest men in a State 
of strong men, and at the bar he was recognized as a great 
constitutional and civil lawyer. As an orator, he was fluent, 
fiery, intense, impressive. Wise, who was himself no mean 
master of English, has described him as "a purist in his 
Anglo-Saxon,'* and as having a style "equal to that of the 
Elizabethan age of English literature." ^ Like Prentiss, he 
was a small man who loomed large when speaking, and, like 
him, too, he had one short leg and wore a cork on the sole of 
his shoe. Unlike Prentiss, he capitalized his infirmity ora- 
torically. Wise found that, while his mannerisms were not 
graceful, they "always excited sympathy for his infirmity.'* 
His voice, which was no small part of his oratorical equip- 
ment, has been described as "clear, soft, flute-like, not loud, 
but like murmuring music." ^ His manner, his speaking 
method, his very appearance, fitted in well with Clay's pro- 
gramme of dramatic, lugubrious oratory, and he at once 
moved to his place beside the panic orators, and played a 
conspicuous and theatrical part. 

Thus, with the panic at its flood, with Benton moving to 
the front of the Administration forces, and with Clay's ora- 
torical battery strengthened, it is time to look in upon the 
Senate. 

1 Seven Decades of the Union. * Ibid. 



CHAPTER XH 

THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 
I 

From the moment Congress convened, it was evident that 
the session was to witness the most bitter party battle ever 
waged. This was inevitable because of the realignments of 
the previous session, and the spirit of the Bank. The coali- 
tion between Clay and Calhoun gave the Opposition a clear 
majority in the Senate. It was common gossip four days 
after Congress was called to order that "the understanding 
between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun" gave the Opposition all 
the numerical advantage.^ This was thoroughly understood 
by Jackson, Taney, Kendall, and Blair, and all public papers 
regarding the removal of the deposits were accordingly 
framed as appeals to the people, rather than to the bodies to 
which they were addressed. The Presidential Message, in 
touching upon this topic, was a campaign document and a 
challenge. Taney's forceful report submitting reasons for 
the removal was a defiance, and a clarion call to the people 
in the corn rows, the villages, and the factories. Thus Jackson 
and his friends forced the fighting from the beginning. 

Clay led the onslaught with a resolution calling upon 
Taney for a report on the new depositories. "I want to 
inquire where the Treasury of the United States is," he 
explained ironically. The bristling Benton instantly moved 
a reference to committee. The Secretary of the Treasury 
had "charged the Bank distinctly with interfering with the 
purity of elections, with corrupting and subsidizing the press, 
with dishonoring its own paper and that of its branches," 
and these "charges of great criminaHty" should be investi- 

* Adams's Memoirs, Dec. 6, 1833. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 323 

gated. Affecting to ignore Benton, Clay followed with 
another resolution calling upon the President to say whether 
the Paper, "alleged" to have been read to the Cabinet, was 
genuine, and if so, to lay a copy before the Senate. This was 
a stupid tactical blunder, and John Forsyth, with his suave 
courtesy, which was not always as innocent as it seemed, 
inquired the purpose of the "unusual" call. Clay's reply 
was a quibble. The Paper had been published as having been 
read by the President, and even promulgated through the 
press, and he, for one, refused to assume that it was genuine. 

"If I understand the gentleman from Kentucky," pressed 
the courtly Forsyth, "he admits that with the intercourse 
between the President and his Cabinet we have nothing 
to do." 

"I make no admission," snapped Clay. 

It was then that Forsyth revealed the theory on which the 
Administration forces were to proceed. Why could not Clay 
indicate the purpose which impelled him? he asked. Was it 
for the purpose of impeachment? Then the call should have 
originated in the House, not the Senate. "When the Presi- 
dent should be brought to our bar, and put on trial for his 
violation of the Constitution, that paper would be produced 
in support of the charge," he continued. But why should 
the Senate call for it? It was accessible for all purposes of 
argument. He could understand the resolution only "as a 
desire to prompt the other House to proceedings by im- 
peachment, and to condemn the President in advance." But 
after Clay had reiterated the absurd explanation that he 
merely sought authentic verification of the genuineness of 
the Paper, the resolution was adopted.^ The response 
of Jackson was immediately made in a dignified and unan- 
swerable note of refusal. "As well might I be required to 
detail to the Senate the free and private conversations I have 
held with those oflBcers on any subject relating to their 

» Cong. Globe, i, 20-21. 



\ 



324 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

duties," he said.^ It was a sharp rebuke, richly merited, 
and left Clay in an unenviable position. 

The next brush came in the prompt rejection by the Sen- 
ate of the nominations of the Government directors who had 
furnished the report on which Jackson had based his charge 
of wrongdoing. The moment their names were sent to the 
Senate, Biddle began to deluge his senatorial friends with 
demands for their rejection. "They are unfit to be there [on 
the board]," he wrote Webster; "unfit to associate with the 
other members." ^ In the Bank circles they were denounced 
as "spies," and thus, in response to the demand of Biddle, 
they were rejected. Such was the intimacy of the relation 
between the party of the Opposition and the Bank of the 
United States. The sinister nature of this relationship is 
painfully illustrated in the case of Daniel Webster, who, 
two weeks after the opening of the session, had written 
Biddle of his rejection of a professional employment against 
the Bank, with the bald suggestion that "I believe my 
retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual," and 
that "if it be wished that my relation to the Bank should be 
continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainers." ' 

Thus the first days of the session were passed in maneuver- 
ing for position, with frequent incidents of a petty nature 
indicative of the rancorous party spirit of the times. Having 
observed the unobtrusive figure of Major Lewis, that most 
consummate of politicians and presidential reporters, moving 
about the floor of the House, Richard Henry Wilde, poet and 
pohtician, Nullifier and Whig, framed a resolution to exclude 
him, but it was defeated.^ Meanwhile Clay was busy map- 
ping his campaign, preparing the resolutions on which he 
proposed to make the issue. The Opposition leaders were 
clearly embarrassed in determining their course of action. 

' 1 Cong. Globe, 23. * Written Dec. 30. 1833, and quoted by Catterall. 

3 Webster to Biddle, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 218. 
* Adams's Memoirs, Dec. 19, 1833. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 325 

Webster appealed to Justice Story, the scholarly associate of 
John Marshall, for an opinion on the legal phases; and writ- 
ing from Cambridge that great jurist would not advise that 
the deposits could not be legally withdrawn unless danger to 
their security was involved, but he advanced the theory on 
which the Bank champions acted — that the Secretary of 
the Treasury did not become custodian of the funds by 
virtue of his position in the Cabinet, but held them as 
a "personal trust, and as much so as if confided to the Chief 
Justice of the United States." Thus he furnished the Op- 
position with the opinion it required. The President had no 
right to interfere; more — if he did interfere, and the Secre- 
tary submitted against his own judgment, he violated his 
trust; and the State banks had no proper authority to take 
over the deposits,^ Unhappily, the learned jurist failed to 
take the next necessary step, and conclude that the President 
had no power to remove a Secretary of the Treasury. 

And it was just this queer opinion that Clay was zealously 
seeking. About the time Webster was appealing to Story for 
the elucidation of legal points, Clay was writing to former 
Senator Tazewell at Norfolk, a great constitutional lawyer, 
inquiring as to whether or not Jackson had transcended his 
power in dismissing Duane. It must have been with some 
embarrassment that he read the Virginian's reply, that to 
him it was "manifestly absurd to regard the President as 
responsible for the acts of subordinate agents, and yet to 
deny him the uncontrolled power of supervising them, and 
removing them from office whenever they had lost his con- 
fidence." 2 This opinion, however, did not deter some 
statesmen from advancing the idea that Tazewell had con- 
temptuously rejected. 

But the position of Story was accepted, and Clay sub- 
mitted his resolutions censuring the President, and holding 

' Story to Webster, Life and Letters of Story, ii, 156-58. 
« Clay's Works, v, 379. 



326 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the reasons given by Taney for the removal "unsatisfactory 
and insufficient." Thus the decks were cleared for action. 
The real fight began in the debate that day upon these resolu- 
tions, and upon these, and others growing out of them, the 
verbal battle, which at times threatened to be other than 
bloodless, raged with intemperate fury for seven months. 

n 

Never up to that time, nor again for more than a genera- 
tion, did Congress so completely hold the interest of the 
country. The great orators of the Opposition never shone 
with greater luster, and by their impassioned eloquence, and 
not a little of consummate histrionics, they persuaded their 
followers, if not themselves, that they were actually fighting 
the battle of liberty against despotism. The Democrats 
contended, on the defensive, that Jackson had the right 
to dismiss Duane, and that Taney had the legal right to 
order the removal. 

It is not surprising that the little city of Washington, with 
all its interests revolving about the performances at the 
Capitol, should have poured forth its people daily to pack 
the galleries and crowd the lobbies. The Senate Chamber 
became the peacock alley of fashion — they who met at the 
dinner or the dance the night before mingled there in the day- 
time. The debate drew many from other sections, and the 
belles of country places and remote towns helped to crowd 
the Chamber to suffocation.^ In the fashionable character 
of the gallery audiences we catch the hostility of the aristoc- 
racy to the President and his party. The distress commit- 
tees with their petitions were wont to pack the galleries 
*' applauding the speakers against the President — saluting 
with noise and confusion those who spoke on his side." ^ 
Confirmation of such scenes are to be found in the official 

* Mrs. Smith, in First Forty Years, touches on this feature. 

* Benton's Thirty Years' View, i, 424. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 327 

report of the proceedings. ^ It has been the fashion to refer 
to the Jacksonians as the "rabble" and the "mob," and as 
partaking of the nature of the Jacobins, but throughout the 
Bank fight the "mob" in the galleries, resorting to the Jac- 
obin methods of hissing and cheering the proceedings on the 
floor, were largely confined to the enemies of the President. 
The debate on the Clay resolutions had scarcely begun 
when the daily arrival of distress petitions furnished a di- 
version in the Senate. The memorials were lugubrious 
recitals of wreck and ruin, and pathetic appeals for the res- 
toration of the deposits. Frequently presented by commit- 
tees, the bearers repaired to the gallery to give sympathetic 
ear to the mournful speeches of the Senators to whom their 
petitions had been entrusted. There was a marked similarity 
in the petitions, and an even more striking resemblance in 
the speeches. The burden of both was that the happiness of 
a prosperous community had been struck down by a tyrant, 
and that nothing but the restoration of the deposits could 
end the agony. That the action of such men as Clay, Web- 
ster, and Calhoun, in picturing in lurid and exaggerated 
colors the distress of the moment, and predicting even greater 
calamities, was calculated to frighten the timid and create 
panic must have been understood by them. At any rate, 
these petitions were part of the leaders' plan.^ This phase of 
the fight developed with the presentation of Clay's resolu- 
tion to "inquire into the expediency of affording temporary 
relief to the community from the present pecuniary embar- 
rassments by prolonging the payment of revenue bonds as 
they fall due." This resolution opened the way for Clay's 
first "distress speech." And Forsyth, who was something of 
a cynic in his way, saw no objection to the resolution, pro- 
vided it were amended by instructing the committee "to in- 
quire into the extent and causes of the alleged distress of the 

* Cong. Globe, i, 74 and 123. 

' Van Burcn vividly describes these scenes, in his Autobiography, 726-27. 



328 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

community, and into the propriety of legislative interfer- 
ence to relieve them." The proposal of the amendment gave 
Forsyth the opportunity to present the Administration's 
opinion of the panic. He had no doubt that there was dis- 
tress, but it had been greatly exaggerated. "Whence does it 
arise?" he asked. "From the conflict — the war that the 
Bank is waging to get the deposits back. The deposits have 
been removed. The Bank stands still to see what will follow, 
and it stands still, too, that its power may be felt in every 
nerve and fiber of the community — and every man shall 
feel the necessity of the institution." ^ 

Thus the panic speeches began. "There sits Mr. Biddle," 
rather stupidly exclaimed one Senator, presenting a petition, 
"in the presidency of the Bank, as calm as a summer's morn- 
ing, with his directors around him, receiving his salary, with 
everything moving on harmoniously; and has this strike 
reached him.'* No, sir. The blow has fallen on the friends of 
the President and the country." ^ Thus did one Opposition 
leader rejoice in the serenity of the Bank and its president 
in the midst of the distress of his country. 

Very early the friends of the Administration took their 
cue from its enemies, and began to flood the Senate with 
memorials against the Bank. Thus day by day the proceed- 
ings were opened by the reading of petitions, followed by 
speeches on the "distress," and replies belittling the panic. 
Mr. Clay's heart was wrung by news of the distress in Sa- 
vannah and Augusta; whereupon Mr. Forsyth rose to deny 
that there was distress in those cities. "I know the indi- 
viduals," he said. "They are highly respectable men — mer- 
chants and members of the Bar. They are friends of the 
Bank of the United States." ^ A New Jersey Senator, op- 
posed to the Administration, presented conflicting petitions 
from his State, with the Jackson petitions numerically the 

* Cong. Qlobe, i, 101. 2 Senator Frelinghuysen, Cong. Globe, i, 129. 

,» CoTia. Globe, 1, 203. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 329 

stronger. Ah, laughed Forsyth, "from the State of New 
Jersey we have three cheers for one groan." ^ When an Op- 
position Senator presented a petition from Portsmouth with 
a doleful tale, Senator Isaac Hill killed the effect by explaining 
the dubious manner in which the signatures had been ob- 
tained. And when, a little later. Hill undertook to present a 
petition of the New Hampshire Legislature against the Bank, 
Webster moved to lay it on the table. In truth the actions 
of legislatures were beginning to annoy the panic-breeders. 
Maine, New York, New Hampshire, and other States had 
spoken in support of Jackson's policy. It became necessary 
to devote more attention to that end of the petition business. 
"What is doing in your legislature about the deposits.'^" 
Clay wrote to his friend. Judge Brooke of Virginia. "We 
want all aid here on that subject which can be given us from 
Richmond." ^ And when the Legislature acted, John Tyler 
lost all patience with the Governor for not sending the peti- 
tion on at once. "The resolutions of the legislature have not 
yet reached me," he wrote impatiently to Mrs. Tyler, "nor 
can I conceive what Floyd is after that he does not forward 
them." ^ They arrived in time, and Webster did not move 
to lay them on the table. 

Then, with the effect of a bomb exploding among the Bank 
champions, came the message of Governor Wolf of Penn- 
sylvania, denouncing the Bank for responsibility for the de- 
pression. Clay lost no time in denouncing him as a man wor- 
shiper, albeit the Governor had previously favored the Bank. 
Another Bank Senator rushed forward with a resolution 
"disapproving the vacillating or time-serving policy of the 
Governor of Pennsylvania," while Forsyth and others criti- 
cized the taste of the proceedings.^ 

Thus the battle of the petitions went merrily on, some 
spontaneous, most inspired by the Bank agents, while the 

1 Cong. Globe, i, 228. 2 Clay's Works, v, 377. 

' Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 484. * Cong. Globe, 1, 344. 



330 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

conflicting memorials were conceived to offset the intended 
eflFect. As the weeks extended into months, and the depres- 
sion began to lift, extraordinary efforts were made to reawaken 
the country against the "tyrant in the White House." Web- 
ster harangued a crowd in New York City; but the major 
part of the platform propaganda work was assigned to 
McDuffie, who better than most men knew how to "ride on 
the whirlwind and direct the storm"; to Preston, who could 
arouse men to frenzy or move them to tears; and to Poin- 
dexter, who was a veritable fire-eater. These three consum- 
mate mob-baiters set forth on a journey that took them 
to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. The orators 
reached Baltimore on Sunday. But no matter; as a minister 
of the Gospel piously said, "in revolutionary times there 
were no Sabbaths," and the meeting was held. It was on 
this occasion that McDufBe, with the true spirit of the dema- 
gogue, solemnly discussed the "rumor" that Jackson, the 
tyrant, might attempt to dismiss Congress at the point of the 
bayonet, and promised that "ten days after the entrance of 
the soldiers into the Senate Chamber, to send the Senators 
home, 200,000 volunteers would be in Washington." ^ 

Meanwhile the Kitchen Cabinet was capitalizing all the 
intemperate attacks upon Jackson, and Blair was publishing 
letters in the "Globe" threatening the life of the President 
if he did not restore the deposits. One of these recited that 
three young men in New York had been selected to "pro- 
ceed in the course of the present month to the capital, there 
to put in execution the design entrusted to their hands." ^ 

m 

Such, however, were the side issues of the session. The real 
fight was waged on Clay's resolutions to censure, and later 
on the President's Protest. Clay opened the debate on the 
censure resolutions in a three-days speech bristling with 

1 Benton's Thirty Years" View, i, 422. * Washington Globe, Feb. 13. 1834- 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 331 

extravagant invective — a tremendous philippic, not only 
against Jackson's Bank policy, but against his entire pres- 
idential career. Intended to serve outside the Senate Cham- 
ber in alarming the people, his appeal was to the passions and 
the fears of the multitude. The central idea of it all was that 
all power was being concentrated in one man. The consti- 
tutional rights of the Senate had been outraged. The public 
domain was threatened with sacrifice. The Indian tribes had 
been miserably wronged. Even the tariff was in danger. An 
"elective monarchy " was all but established. On every hand 
was depression, suffering, gloom. The power over the purse 
had been lodged with that over the sword — a combination 
fatal to free government. The President's conduct had been 
lawless. Such, in brief, was the tone and temper of one of the 
greatest philippics that ever poured from the lips of Clay.* 
As he sank into his seat, Benton instantly began his three- 
days reply, meeting the attack with a counter-offen&ive. 
"Who are these Goths? " he demanded — referring to Clay's 
call upon the people to drive the Goths from the Capitol. 
"They are President Jackson and the Democratic Party 
— he just elected President over the Senator himself, and 
the party just been made a majority in the House — all by 
the votes of the people. It is their act which has placed these 
Goths in possession of the Capitol to the discomfiture of the 
Senator and his friends." 

Calhoun followed in a speech of an hour and a half in sup- 
port of the resolutions, proclaiming the coalition. "The 
Senator from Kentucky anticipates with confidence," he 
said, "that the small party who were denounced at the last 
session as traitors and disunionists will be found on this 
trying occasion in the front rank, and manfully resisting 
the advance of despotic power." But Calhoun's intellectual 
self-respect deterred him from contending that the removal 
of Duane was an act of Executive usurpation. 

1 Clay's Works, vii, 575-620. 



332 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Then followed Rives in a manly defense of the Administra- 
tion which he well knew would force his retirement from the 
Senate under the instructions of the Virginia Legislature. 
And then the new orator of the Opposition, William Camp--i 
bell Preston, entered the lists, attacking Government direct--' 
ors for furnishing the President with a report of the Bank's i 
activities. The President had no right to ask information, , 
and the directors no right to comply. The galleries were i, 
moved to applause, and the Carolinian took his place among ,' 
the popular orators of the day.^ Forsyth followed Preston, 
to be succeeded by Grundy, who was trailed by FreUng- , 
huysen for the resolutions. 

Meanwhile Webster was impressively silent. Unwilling 
longer to make the Bank the football of party politics, he 
looked disapprovingly upon the war of personalities. He 
knew that no constructive measure had been proposed, and ^ 
that Biddle's frenzied pressure on the people was driving sup- 
porters from the institution. He had no heart at this time 
for an attack on Jackson — recalling the "reciprocal kind- 
nesses" of the last few months. ^ He reahzed that a senato- 
rial censure and exterior pressure would never drive Jackson 
to such a recharter measure as had been proposed. And yet, 
in January, Calhoun was positive that the Administration 
had been mortally wounded.^ Preston was exuberantly 
proclaiming that the removal of the deposits would force a 
recharter on the Bank's terms. ^ In February, when the Bank 
was losing ground with the people and making no congres- 
sional converts. Clay was writing to Brooke that "we are 
gaining, both in public opinion and in number in the House of 
Representatives." ^ That Clay was supremely selfish in his 
relations with the Bank is generally conceded by historians i 
now,^ and was keenly felt even by Biddle, who preferred a j 

^ Adams's Memoirs, Jan. 23, 1834; Mrs. Smith's First Forty Years, 853. > 
^ March's Reminiscences of Congress. ' \ 

3 Cattemll, Second Bank of the Uniitd States, 333. * Ibid. 

6 Clay's Works, v, 377. 6 guch is Catterall's view. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 333 

joint resolution ordering the restoration to wasting months in 
wrangling over a vote of censure. This plan he urged upon 
Webster, through Horace Binney of the House. But Clay 
scofiFed at the idea. He was more interested in making Jack- 
son obnoxious for party reasons than in serving his friends in 
Philadelphia, and he actually felt that he was succeeding 
in his purpose. 
At length Webster determined to strike out for himself. 

IV' 

Early in March he came forward with his compromise re- 
charter measure providing a renewal for six years only; for 
an abandonment of the monopoly features to the end that 
Congress might, in the meantime, if it saw fit, grant a charter 
to another company; for the restoration of the deposits only 
after July 1st; and for the issuance of no note under the $20 
denomination. This compromise had been discussed with 
friends of the Administration, who were ready to support it 
provided the friends of the Bank would unite upon it. Three 
days later Webster addressed the Senate on the virtues and 
purposes of the measure, carefully refraining from personali- 
ties or denunciation of the President. The most militant of 
Jackson's friends could have found no fault with the orator's 
treatment of their idol. Nor did he imitate his party col- 
leagues in an intemperate discussion of the removal. He 
traced the origin of the distress to Taney's order; showed the 
relation between commerce and credit, and between credit 
and banking, and effectively disposed of Jackson's fallacy 
that men who operate on credit are undeserving of considera- 
tion. It was only in his affectation of indignation over the 

' charge that the Bank was deliberately contributing to the 
distress that he departed from the high ground of statesman- 
ship, and played the hypocritical politician. But the Senators 
listening eagerly to his words did not know of the letter he 

^had written to Biddle predicting that the "disciplining" of 



334 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the people would result in a renewal of the charter, or that 
he had urged upon Biddle, through Binney, that he ought to 
"occasionally ease off, where it is requisite to prevent ex- 
treme distress." No one knew better than he that the Bank 
not only possessed, but exerted, the power charged by the 
Administration. This aside, Webster's was the most digni- 
fied, impersonal, and statesmanlike speech of the session. 

But the moment he resumed his seat, the schism among 
the leaders of the Opposition was emphasized when Leigh 
arose to announce that the Virginia view of the unconstitu- 
tionality of the Bank would make it impossible for him to 
support the bill. Three days later Calhoun criticized the 
measure as only a temporary expedient, and proposed, in- 
stead, a bill of his own providing a recharter for twelve years. 
The only extensive attack on the Webster compromise, how- 
ever, was that of the "Cato of the Senate," Hugh Lawson 
White, who had not up to that time wholly broken with his 
old friend in the White House. Respected as a financier, he 
was always heard with profound respect. He vigorously de- 
fended the removal of the deposits on the grounds set forth 
in Jackson's Message. His speech was all the more impres- 
sive because he had advised against the removal and his let- 
ter had been read to the Cabinet. The day before taking the 
floor, he wrote of his embarrassment, but later developments 
having changed his opinion, he felt it would be censurable 
to remain silent.^ 

But in the end it was not the opposition of Democratic 
Senators that suddenly terminated the consideration of the 
Webster compromise. It was soon found that the friends of 
the Bank were hopelessly divided on any constructive pro- 
gramme. Even in the inner Bank circles there were clashing 
views. Biddle favored the Webster plan; Sergeant, the chief 
counsel, and Binney, leading spokesman in the House, pre- 
ferred the Calhoun measure. Even these differences might 

* Memoir of Ilugh Lawson White, 143. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS S35 

have been reconciled but for the selfishness of Clay, who per- 
sisted in his determination to use the Bank for party pur- 
poses. "IfMr. C [Clay] and Mr. C [Calhoun] would go along 
with us," Webster wrote Biddle, "we could carry the com- 
promise bill through the Senate by a strong two thirds 
majority. Can you write through anybody to talk with 
Mr. Calhoun?" ^ In the meanwhile Calhoun was attempting 
the conversion of such Administration Senators as Benton 
and Silas Wright, without success. 

While these negotiations were in progress, the fury of Clay 
over the independence of Webster increased in intensity, 
culminating in the threat that, if the New Englander failed 
to move to lay his own motion on the table, he would make 
the motion himself. Thus, one week after the delivery of his 
speech, Webster killed his own measure. When, with the 
explanation that he had been disappointed in his hopes, he 
made the motion to table, John Forsyth demanded the yeas 
and nays to show that Webster's bill had not been killed by 
the Administration Senators, but by his own party friends. 
The roll-call showed practically all the Bank Senators voting 
to table, with Benton, Forsyth, White, Hill, Wright, and 
Grundy voting against the motion. Thus the only practical 
and constructive attempt made by the friends of the Bank 
to save the institution was slaughtered in the house of its 
friends.^ 

V 

With the accumulating evidence of impatience in the coun- 
try. Clay at length determined to bring to a vote the reso- 
lutions, submitted merely to irritate and provoke a debate 
that would give the panic time to act. So firmly was Clay 
convinced that the "disciplining" of the people was work- 
ing the destruction of Jackson's popularity, that he sought 
to transfer a portion of his fancied resentment to Van Buren, 

1 Catterall, Second Bank of the United States, 336. ■;> Cong. Globe, i, 264. . 



336 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

who was all but certain to be the Democratic nominee in 
1836.^ There has probably never been a more transparent 
bit of histrionics perpetrated upon a deliberative body than 
that of Clay in his pathetic appeal to Van Buren, seated in 
the chair, and with a padlock on his lips, to hasten to Jackson 
with a plea for the suffering people. 

"To you, sir, in no unfriendly spirit, but with feelings 
softened and subdued by the deep distress which pervades 
every class of our countrymen, I make this appeal," he 
exclaimed, his eyes moist with tears. "... Depict to him, if 
you can find language to portray, the heartrending wretched- 
ness of thousands of the working classes cast out of employ- 
ment. Tell him of the tears of helpless widows, no longer 
able to earn their bread, and of unclad and unfed orphans, 
who have been driven by this policy, out of the busy pursuits, 
in which, but yesterday, they were gaining an honest live- 
lihood. . . . Tell him that he has been abused, deceived, 
betrayed by the wicked counsels of unprincipled men around 
him. Inform him that all efforts in Congress to alleviate or 
terminate the public distress are paralyzed and likely to 
prove totally unavailing, from his influence upon a large 
portion of its members who are unwilling to withdraw their 
support, or to take a course repugnant to his wishes and 
feelings. Tell him that in his bosom alone, under actual cir- 
cumstances, does the power reside to relieve the country; 
and that unless he opens it to conviction, and corrects the 
errors of his Administration, no human imagination can 
conceive, and no human tongue can express the awful con- 
sequences which may follow." 

With this piece of play-acting, Clay, looking as much dis- 
tressed as one of his petitioners, sank exhausted in his seat. 
Throughout the ludicrous scene, Van Buren "maintained 
the utmost decorum of countenance, looking respectfully and 

' " Our city is full of distress committees. The more the better." (Clay to Brooke, 
Works. V, 377.) 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 337 

even innocently at the speaker all the while as if treasuring 
up every word he said to be repeated to the President." * 
But all the while the more astute Red Fox was thinking that 
the speech "would tend to strengthen greatly the attachment 
of his friends; would warm up their sympathies in his be- 
half and concentrate their regard." ^ With the eyes of all 
upon him — and the Senate had been really affected by Clay's 
voice and manner — • Van Buren called a Senator to the chair, 
placidly descended to the floor as though he were not the 
object of interest, deliberately walked to Clay's seat, and, 
in his most courtly manner, and with his most courtly bow, 
asked for a pinch of his snuff. The startled orator gave him 
his snuffbox. Van Buren took a pinch, applied it to his 
nostrils, returned the box, bowed again, and resumed the 
chair as though nothing had happened. And the Senate 
smiled. Clay's appeal had hovered dangerously near the 
ridiculous, and Van Buren pushed it over. No single incident 
so well illustrates the political purpose of Clay's activities 
on the removal of the deposits. 

But even panics and politics cannot go on forever, and 
the discussion on the Clay resolutions had covered *'the 
longest period which had been occupied in a single debate 
in either House of Congress since the organization of the 
Government." ^ Thus, on March 27th the Senate, by a 
vote of 26 to 20, placed the stigma of a censure upon the 
action of the President. 

Jackson was now to have his inning. 

i • 

VI 

1 With mass meetings being organized against him in all sec- 
l tions, with the capital crowded with hostile delegations, and 
1 with the Senators thundering their extravagant philippics 

1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, x, 420. 

2 Van Buren's statement to Senator Foote, as given in the Cachet of Reminiscences. 
•, * Clay's speech, Cong. Globe, i, 269. 



SS8 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

at the tyrant responsible for the widows' and the orphans' 
woes, Jackson remained serene and unafraid.^ But with the 
adoption of the resolutions of censure, he determined to 
strike back in such a way as effectively to reach the people. 
There were men in those days who thought that a senatorial 
censure would wreck any reputation. They had not yet 
sensed the spirit of the times. Three weeks after the Senate 
acted, Major Donelson appeared in the Chamber with the 
famous Protest. Nothing could have been more merciless 
than the cold logic with which the iron man pounded the 
resolutions of condemnation; nothing more biting than his 
reference to those Senators supporting them, who had thus 
"deliberately disregarded the recorded opinion of their 
States." He solemnly protested "against the proceedings . . . 
as unauthorized by the Constitution, contrary to the spirit 
and to several of its express provisions, subversive of that 
distribution of powers of government which it has ordained 
and established, destructive of the checks and safeguards 
by which those powers were intended on the one hand to be 
controlled and on the other to be protected, and calculated, 
by their immediate and collateral effects, by their character 
and tendency, to concentrate in the hands of a body, not 
directly amenable to the people, a degree of influence and 
power dangerous to their liberties and fatal to the Constitu- 
tion of their choice." 

Not only had his public character been assailed, but im- 
putations had been cast upon his private character. "In 
vain do I bear upon my person," he continued in a passage 
of no little eloquence, "enduring memorials of that contest in 
which American liberty was purchased; in vain have I since 
periled property, fame, and life in defense of the rights and 
privileges so dearly bought; in vain am I now, without a 
personal aspiration or the hope of individual advantage, 
encountering responsibilities and dangers from which by mere 

1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, i, 424. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 339 

inactivity in relation to a single point I might have been 
exempt, if any serious doubts can be entertained as to the 
purity of my purpose and motives. If I had been ambitious, 
I should have sought an alliance with that powerful institu- 
tion which even now aspires to no divided empire. If I had 
been venal, I should have sold myself to its designs. Had I 
preferred personal comfort and official ease to the perform- 
ance of my arduous duty, I should have ceased to molest it. 
In the history of conquerors and usurpers, never in the fire of 
youth nor in the vigor of manhood could I find an attraction 
to lure me from the path of duty, and now I shall scarcely 
find an inducement to commence the career of ambition 
when gray hairs and a decaying frame, instead of inviting to 
toil and battle, call me to the contemplation of other worlds 
where conquerors cease to be honored an^ usurpers expiate 
their crimes." And he closed with the request that the Pro- 
test be entered upon the journals of the Senate.^ 

Whatever else may be said of this remarkable document, 
its effect upon the masses of the people, idolizing Jackson as 
they never had another American, was certain to be tre- 
mendous. The ideas were largely Jackson's. Attorney- 
General Butler, a brilliant lawyer, worked out the legal end, 
while Amos Kendall devoted his genius to those portions in- 
tended for political effect. The Protest appeared immediately 
in Blair's "Globe," and was soon published in all the Ad- , 
ministration papers of the country. 

vn 

The effect on the Senate may be better imagined than de- 
scribed. Poindexter, whose private grudge was the inspiration 
of his renegadism, could not "express the feeling of indig- 
nation " the paper had excited in his bosom, and he would 
"spurn it from the Senate" — "that body which stands as a 
barrier between the people and the encroachments of execu- 

^ See Richardson's Messages and Papers of the Presidents. 



340 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

tive power." It was not a Message — merely "a paper, 
signed 'Andrew Jackson,'" and "nothing else." ^ Sprague 
of Maine, who had been pilloried, spoke "more in grief than 
in anger," and while the President had referred to "his 
Secretary" and felt that this was "his Government," he, the 
Senator, "never bowed the knee to Baal." And while the 
tyrant was appealing to the people, look about. "Behold 
your green fields withered; listen to the cries of distress of 
the widows and orphans, rising almost in execration of the 
exercise of that power which has blasted their hopes and 
reduced them to despair." ^ Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, 
another pilloried statesman, next arose to discuss "this most 
extraordinary proceeding — one which would form an era in 
American history." What a spectacle ! " When the busy hum 
of industry was silenced, when the laborer was in want of 
employment, when banks were breaking in every direction, 
and the cries for relief from the unrelenting hand of power 
were heard everywhere around us," the Senate had listened 
to a lecture of an hour and a half. And why refer to the 
New Jersey Legislature? He had "dared to meet the frowns 
of his constituents" because of his zeal for his country.^ 
Southard of New Jersey, also pilloried by Jackson, hoped 
that he might " school himself into that degree of moderation 
necessary for the occasion." He could find no excuse for 
Jackson's indignation. And yet "we have received, not from 
Charles I, Cromwell, or Napoleon Bonaparte, but from a 
man combining the characters of the whole of them, a warn- 
ing to cease our further proceedings." ^ And Leigh closed the 
day's events by declaring "before God that upon the fate of 
these resolutions, and the disposition of this question, depends 
the permanency of the Constitution, handed down to us by 
our fathers." ^ 

To get the right perspective upon these speeches, it should 
be borne in mind that at the time of their delivery the busi- 

1 Cong. Globe, i. 317. » Ibid., 318. » Jbid, « Ibid., 321. » Ibid., 323. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 341 

ness men were openly charging Biddle with responsibility for 
the panic. Niles's "Register" had admitted that the Bank's 
power was too great, and the "St. Louis Republican," a 
stanch supporter of the Bank, had turned upon it with a 
bitter denunciation of its course.^ Thus, however, the debate 
began, and in this spirit was it continued for a month — a 
month of fierce invective. On the second day, following the 
philippic of Leigh, the crowds in the packed galleries clashed 
with cheers and hisses. Especially pleased were the galleries 
when, apropos of Jackson's reference to his gray hairs, the 
fiery cripple compared him to Mount ^tna, "whose sum- 
mit was capped with eternal snow, but which was always 
vomiting forth its liquid fire." ^ The discussion finally re- 
volved around the Poindexter resolutions not to receive. A 
few days later Calhoun attacked the Protest with great bit- 
terness, and amendments were offered by both Calhoun and 
Forsyth. That of the Carolinian declared the President had 
no right to send, and the Senate no right to receive, such a 
document. Then the Administration disclosed its hand in 
the Forsyth resolution providing that "an authenticated 
copy of the original resolution [Clay's] with a list of the ayes 
and nays, of the President's Message and the pending resolu- 
tion be prepared . . . and transmitted to the Governor of each 
State of the Union to be laid before their legislature at the 
next session, as the only authority authorized to decide upon 
the opinions and conduct of the Senators." ' Here was a 
declaration^ by indirection, from the leader of the Adminis- 
tration that the President was not authorized to pass upon 
the opinions and conduct of Senators. Had the resolution 
stopped there, it would not have differed materially from 
those of Poindexter or the resolution of Calhoun. But it de- 
clared that there was an authority to pass upon the conduct 
of Senators — the people who elected them to the Senate; 
and that, with the facts before them, they should pass upon 

1 Feb. 10, 1834. « Cong. Globe, i, 328. \ » Ibid., 368. 



342 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the conduct of the public servants. This was an impressive 
proclamation that the Jacksonian Senators were convinced 
that the people sustained them; and the fact that the Forsyth 
resolution was defeated by a party vote was an admission 
from the Opposition that it lacked such faith. 

When in early May the Poindexter resolutions were called 
up for final consideration, the debate was closed by Webster 
in a constitutional argument pitched upon a higher plane 
than that of personalities, and interspersed with passages of 
eloquence seldom equaled even by him.^ Nothing reveals 
the inability of the senatorial oligarchy to understand the 
altered spirit of the people so well as his contention that 
the Senate was expected to stand between the people and the 
tyranny of Executive power. The fact that the peaceful 
revolution of 1828 was a rising of the people against the 
aristocracy of the old congressional clique does not appear 
to have occurred to Webster or his party friends at any 
time during the Jacksonian period. 

When Webster concluded, the last word for the Adminis- 
tration was spoken by its most eloquent spokesman, who, 
better than any other, was temperamentally fitted to meet 
the New England orator upon the high plane he had chosen, 
John Forsyth. Webster rejoined, briefly, the vote was taken, 
and the resolutions passed with a margin of eleven votes. 

VIII 

Meanwhile the battle over the deposits was being fought 
in the House, albeit with less vituperation and abuse. John 
Quincy Adams, one of the Bank's leaders, looked upon the 
proceedings in both Houses with cynical amusement as 
being the mere ebullitions of party politics with no terminal 
facilities. Though a talkative member, his name appearing 
ninety-three times during the session, he made none of the 

^ Especially the famous passage inspired by memories of his emotions on the 
ramparts of Quebec. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 343 

principal speeches on the leading questions; but whenever his 
vote was required, it was cast for the Bank, and whenever 
his advice was soHcited, it was given. The more active 
leadership of the tempestuous McDuflSe, whose partiahty for 
the Bank had displaced him in the chairmanship of the 
Ways and Means Committee, was more in evidence. But 
more impressive than either in the front rank of the Bank 
champions was a new member whose extraordinary ability 
placed him immediately with the foremost of congressional 
orators. When Horace Binney entered the House, he was in 
his fifty-third year, at the height of his forensic fame, and at 
the head of the Philadelphia Bar. He was, perhaps, the sole 
figure among the Bank leaders in House or Senate who was 
not moved in the slightest degree by political considerations. 
He had overcome his distaste for political controversy and 
entered the House with the sole purpose of protecting, as 
best he could, the interest of the institution of which he had, 
but the year before, become a director. He was as much the 
attorney and special pleader of the Bank in the House as he 
could have been in the courts. His physical appearance 
alone would have distinguished him in any assembly. Tall, 
large, and perfectly proportioned, he has been described by 
one who observed him during the Bank fight as "an Apollo 
in manly beauty." ^ As an orator he was of the W^ebsterian 
mould. He spoke with great deliberation, and with perfect 
enunciation and modulation with a voice that was full and 
musical. Unlike McDuffie, he was incapable of tearing a 
passion to tatters. Never noisy, even in moments of great 
excitement, he was always graceful and easy in his manner. 
He spoke the language that Addison and Swift wrote. He 
addressed the House with the same scrupulous care and the 
same lofty dignity with which he would have addressed John 
Marshall on the Supreme Bench, or conversed with Mrs. 
Livingston in her drawing-room. In social relationships, his 

^ Sargent's Public Men and Events, ii, 213. 



344 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

innate refinement could not be marred by the free-and-easy 
manners of the cloak-room; his suavity could not be dis- 
turbed by the ferocity of attack; his dignity could withstand 
any circumstance. Such was the Bank's most perfect cham- 
pion in its greatest crisis. He left his profession to serve its 
cause, and that cause defeated, he gladly bade farewell to 
public life and returned to his profession and his habitual 
peace of mind. 

As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the 
burden of the battle for the Administration fell on James 
K. Polk. History has settled on the verdict that he was a 
man of mediocre ability, with nothing to commend him to 
the admiration, and little to the respect, of posterity. But 
he managed the fight for the Administration with consum- 
mate parliamentary skill. Beset on all sides by tremendous 
onslaughts, he remained cool, courteous, and fair throughout, 
and won the open commendation of McDuffie for the man- 
liness of his methods. It is impossible to turn the yellowing 
pages of the "Congressional Globe," recording the day-by- 
day story of the fight, without a growing feeling of admira- 
tion for Polk. He was never diverted from the question, 
never excited by attacks, patient, and j^et always pressing 
courteously for action. In the midst of the frenzied partisans, 
he looms large. 

The fight began over the reference of the Taney report and 
Polk's motion that it be referred to his committee. In ex- 
plaining his reasons the latter avowed a purpose to investi- 
gate the Bank, and the forces rushed into action. "Why 
investigate," cried McDuflSe, "when admissions would be 
made without an investigation?" Had Bank money been 
used in the campaign? Admitted! "State your sum," he 
shouted, "fifty, sixty, or a hundred thousand." The Con- 
gress had named a depository for the public money; it had 
been removed; it must be restored — that was the subject for 
debate.^ Binney immediately arose to supplement McDuffie's 

» Cong. Globe, i, 24. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 345 

suggestion. "What is the object of the inquiry asked for?" 
he demanded. *'Is it to suggest reasons for the Secretary's 
act . . . ? If you bring in other facts, other judgments, other 
reasons, you annul the judgment of the Secretary, agree that 
it was wrong, and assume to exercise an original instead 
of a derivative power." If Taney had acted on suflScient 
reasons, "it was for the House, on behalf of the people, to 
pronounce their judgment; and if they were sufficient, then 
there was an end to the question." More: "What knowledge 
have we of the condition of the banks selected by the Govern- 
ment?" 

The State banks not safe? Polk retorted. Very well, "this 
constitutes one of the chief objects of the investigation pro- 
posed." A "question of public faith? " as Binney had hinted. 
"Is it not proper, then," asked Polk, "for a committee . . . 
to inquire by which party the contract was violated?" And 
only to inquire into the sufficiency of Taney's reasons? Why, 
"some of the reasons given may involve the charter of the 
Bank." 1 

After a week of wrangling, the Administration won on 
the reference, but the moment the vote was announced, 
McDuffie moved instructions to the committee to report a 
joint resolution providing for the depositing of all revenues 
thereafter collected in the Bank of the United States — and 
this was the peg on which the main discussion hung. 

The impetuous McDuffie was the first to rush into the 
arena. His was a bitter, brilliant excoriation of Jackson, a 
fulsome glorification of the Bank, and he thundered on for 
two days, 2 impassioned, in a state of constant volcanic erup- 
tion, but little more than "a fierce attack upon the Presi- 
dent." ^ One week later Polk consumed two days in a reply 
which, in its moderation of tone and language and its argu- 
mentative character, was in striking contrast to that of the 
vituperative Carolinian. Defending in detail the position 

* Cong. Globe, 25. » Ibid., 43. ' Adams's Memoirs, Dec. 23, 1833. 



346 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

of Jackson, discussing the legal and constitutional phases, 
citing precedents and authorities, he built up a case for the 
Administration which could not have been other than im- 
pressive in view of the attempt of most of the Bank's cham- 
pions to answer him.^ Another week elapsed before Horace 
Binney rose to reply, in a masterpiece of parliamentary 
oratory. In musically flowing sentences he described the 
prosperity preceding the attack upon the Bank, the nature 
of the currency and credit, the effect of the shaking of confi- 
dence, the necessity for the Bank's curtailments, and argued 
that "the control of the public deposits is inherent in the 
Congress." But had the Bank been charged with exercising 
political power .f* "Granted — granted — the charge is 
granted, but the Bank has not succeeded in this exercise of 
political power. . . . The late election proves that it did not 
succeed. The force of array, legislative and executive, is 
against the Bank; and it did not succeed. The act of re- 
moval was not, therefore, an imperative and retributive act; 
but an act of malignant dye — an act vindictive." In all his 
historical researches he knew of only one instance where a 
charter had been destroyed "on the alleged ground of the 
assumption of political power." That was in the reign of 
Charles II, when, on that ground, he obtained possession of 
the charter of London. "But it was restored when constitu- 
tional liberty dawned." Thus he approached his conclusion 
— a demand for the immediate restoration of the deposits, 
and, speaking with a rapidity that the reporter could not 
follow, launched upon his peroration, with the plea that the 
question be not considered in the spirit of party, but "rather 
as one affecting the general interest of the community; as one 
involving the integrity of the Constitution, the stability of 
contracts, and the permanence of free government; as a 
question involving public faith, national existence, and the 
honor and integrity of the country, at home and abroad." ^ 

1 Cong. Globe, i, 08. » Ibid.. 84-94. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 347 

Thus, refraining from personalities, and frowning upon the 
party aspect of the controversy, the most clever of the Bank's 
champions, speaking with the cunning of the proverbial 
"Philadelphia lawyer," attempted, too late, to undo the 
work Clay had done to serve a selfish end. The night after 
the conclusion of the speech found him at the White House, 
one of numerous guests, and Jackson sought him, devoted 
himself to him with an embarrassing assiduity, and thanked 
him for advocating his cause without indulgence in personal 
abuse. 

But it was not every Philadelphia lawyer that was to be 
looked upon so kindly in Jacksonian circles. In the midst of 
the struggle in the House a series of Bank articles began 
to appear in the "National Gazette" over the signature of 
"Vindex." It was just at the time Joseph Hopkinson, the 
Federal Judge for eastern Pennsylvania, began to haunt the 
floor and lobby of the House — a privilege he enjoyed by 
virtue of previous membership in that body. His activity 
among the members became so open as to create comment, 
and the "National Gazette" made a laborious attempt to 
explain his presence. It was a purely social visit. He had 
come on the invitation of the Judges of the Supreme Court. 
It was natural that he should delight in renewing old friend- 
ships. This explanation gave Blair his opportunity, in a 
column editorial, to assail the Philadelphia jurist as a lobby- 
ist, to insist that he had disqualified himself to sit on any 
Bank case, and to challenge the "National Gazette" to deny 
that he was the author of the "Vindex" articles. 

"But further we would inquire," wrote Blair, "whether 
the judge is not a debtor of the Bank as well as its anonymous 
vindicator .f^ We believe he is — and it is diflicult to say 
whether the judge's extreme solicitude and activity in behalf 
of the Bank arises from its pecuniary favors, the bonds of 
family affection which bind him to Mr. Biddle, his son hav- 
ing married Mr. Biddle's sister, or the old Federal feeling 



348 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

which always distinguished him, and which inclined him 
against his country during the last war, and prompted his 
speech after its close, declaring the Nation was disgraced by 
the peace." ^ Such was the bitterness and such were the 
blunt weapons in evidence in the contest even in the House. 
Early in March, Polk submitted his report justifying every 
step of the Administration, and including the sensational 
resolution providing for an investigation of the Bank at 
Philadelphia. Binney submitted a minority report favoring 
the restoration of the deposits, and the debate took a fresh 
start. The outstanding speech of this phase of the debate 
was that of Rufus Choate, described by Adams, on the eve- 
ning of its delivery, as "the most eloquent speech of the ses- 
sion, and, in a course of reasoning, altogether impressive and 
original." ^ Still young, and his public career but brief, his 
great intellectual labors had already undermined his health, 
and even thus early in life he presented to the House when he 
arose the "cadaverous look" which confronts us to-day in 
the portraits of his later life.^ With all the consummate 
skill which so distinguished his advocacy in the courts, he 
sought to divert the discussion from the channels it had fol- 
lowed. "As to the Bank itself," he said, "I shall go through- 
out on the supposition that it will not be rechartered. I call 
on gentlemen to look upon the proposition to restore the 
deposits merely as a temporary measure of relief." The cry- 
ing need of the immediate hour was the use of the public 
money, and this could be had in a beneficial way at the time 
only through the Bank of the United States. Like Binney, 
he won the respect of Administration forces, and the suc- 
ceeding speaker, hostile to the restoration, found the views 
expressed "new and interesting, and delivered in a tone and 
spirit becoming the representatives of a free people." ^ But 
the debate dragged on without any high lights until in early 

1 Washington Globe, June 3, 1834. 2 Adams's Memoirs, March 28, 1834. 

* Adams refers to his "cadaverous look." * Cong. Globe, i, 272. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 349 

April, when McDuflSe returned to the attack, still in a super- 
heated condition, and seeing swords and daggers gleaming in 
the air. Never in all history, he thought, had "the progress 
of the usurpation of the Executive been more rapid, more 
bold, or more successful than in the United States in the last 
fifteen months." As he sat down, the previous question was 
moved, and with the appointment of tellers there fell a deep 
silence with the contending forces "glowering upon each 
other." ^ The roll was called — and victory fell to the Jack- 
sonians with an overwhelming majority. 

In pursuance of the resolutions providing for an investiga- 
tion, a committee was appointed, and with no thought of 
meeting opposition, it repaired to Philadelphia, sent Biddle 
a copy of the resolutions, informed him of the committee's 
presence and its readiness to visit the Bank on the following 
day at any hour that he would indicate. Then followed days 
of struggle, with the committee obstructed at every turn by 
the technical barricades thrown up by John Sergeant. It was 
not for nothing, in the old days, that men characterized 
the cunning as "smart as a Philadelphia lawyer." Having 
exhausted their resources, the committeemen returned to 
Washington and prepared reports to the House. The minor- 
ity report, submitted by Edward Everett, excused the Bank. 
The majority charged contempt of the House, and asked that 
warrants be issued for the arrest of Biddle and the directors. 
A few days later Adams offered his resolution to discharge 
the committee from further duty, setting forth that there 
had been no contempt, and characterizing the proposed 
arrest of Biddle and his directors as "unconstitutional, 
arbitrary, and an oppressive abuse of power." If this resolu- 
tion was novel, under the circumstances, the speech in 
which it was supported was even more remarkable. "The 
House has sent a committee to investigate the affairs of the 
Bank," Adams said. "Have they not done it? Not one 

* Jenkins, Lijc oj Polk. 



350 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

word on that subject is to be found in the report. It contains 
no information on the affairs of the Bank." ^ And how could 
the House enforce its decrees.'* he asked. "We have not a 
soldier to enforce our orders." And Adams was more lauda- 
tory in his references to the bankers, "distinguished for their 
talents," than he ever was to political friend or foe. 

Thus nothing came of the resolutions. Perhaps nothing 
was expected. If the Bank's curt treatment of the committee 
amused the business element and the Whig politicians, it 
delighted Kendall and Blair, for they knew how effectively 
the incident could be used with the masses. 

IX 

After the adoption of the Poindexter resolutions no further 
steps were taken in the Senate until Clay, three weeks later, 
presented his resolution ordering the restoration of the 
deposits. This was in the midst of the difficulties of the 
House committee with the Bank. Why, demanded Benton, 
had it not been presented in the early part of the session? 
Why now with no possibility of concurrence in the House .?* 
And why now in the midst of a controversy between the 
House and the Bank, with contempt proceedings pending 
against the Bank, and the House awaiting the report of its 
investigation? What right had the Senate to interfere in 
behalf of the Bank? He hoped the Senate would postpone 
the consideration of the resolution for a week to permit the 
House to decide the question of contempt. ^ Nevertheless, 
the Senate, by a party vote, passed the futile resolution. 

But the senatorial champions of the Bank were to encoun- 
ter embarrassments other than those growing out of the 
action of the House. In May, Mr. Clay had called upon 
Taney for a report upon the finances. At the time this was 
done, the Senate was being deluged with distress petitions, 

1 The report very clearly explained the reasons. {Cong. Globe, i, ■l'lC-48.) 
- 2 ^ong. Globe, i, 409. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 351 

mass meetings were being held, and the doleful senatorial 
descriptions of wreck and ruin were falling mournfully upon 
the Senate Chamber, day by day. It was the middle of June 
when Taney's report reached the Senate. The facts as set 
forth were in such startling contrast with conditions as they 
had been depicted by Clay and his followers that the Admin- 
istration leaders, always clever, and always thinking more 
of the voters in the country than of the politicians in the 
Senate house, determined that it should have the greatest 
possible publicity. The day before, Taney had summoned 
Benton to the Treasury, and had gone over the report with 
him, furnishing him with all the data, and preparing him for 
a speech that could be sent to the country. As anticipated, 
the reading in the Senate had not proceeded far when Web- 
ster arose to move that further reading be dispensed with, 
and the report sent to the Finance Committee. Benton 
objected. The report was read. Then Benton, in his most 
flamboyant mood, arose to comment upon it. 

"Well, the answer comes," he exclaimed with the Benton- 
ian flourish. "It is a report to make the patriot heart re- 
joice, replete with rich information, pregnant with evidences 
of national prosperity. How is it received — how received by 
those who called for it? With downcast looks and wordless 
tongues. A motion is made to stop the reading." But he did 
not propose that such a report should be disposed of "in this 
unceremonious and compendious style." No, "a pit was dug 
for Mr. Taney; the diggers of the pit have fallen into it: the 
fault is not his ; and the sooner they clamber out, the better 
for themselves." And, regardless of the embarrassment of 
the conspirators, he proposed that the country should know 
that "never since America had a place among nations was 
the prosperity of the country equal to what it is this day." * 

In this exordium he did not exaggerate the story of the 
figures of the report; and the report did not misrepresent 

^ Cong. Globe, i, 454. 



352 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the condition of the country. The Bank panic had run out. 
Only its friends were now suffering, and even Philip Hone in 
New York was secretly cursing the name of Biddle. 

But the enemies of the Administration in the Senate were 
to have their revenge. Andrew Stevenson, for almost seven 
years Speaker of the House, one of the most courtly and 
talented men in public life, had been nominated for the 
English Mission. He resigned from the Speakership and 
from Congress, and his name was sent to the Senate for con- 
firmation. And the political combination that, in a spirit of 
proscription, had refused to confirm Van Buren, declined to 
confirm the man selected as his successor. This act was too 
flagrant even for John Tyler, who voted to confirm.^ As a 
result of this petty policy, America was unrepresented in 
England from 1832, when Van Buren was humiliated, until 
1836, when a Democratic Senate confirmed Stevenson. 

As the end of the session approached, Jackson sent to the 
Senate the nominations of Taney and Butler, as Secretary 
of the Treasury and Attorney-General. The latter was con- 
firmed; the former rejected. But the rejection of Taney had 
been considered more than probable by Jackson, who had 
refrained from sending the nomination to the Senate until the 
last minute. This was the first time, however, in the history 
of the Government that a Cabinet oflScer had failed of con- 
firmation. It was in no sense, however, a reflection upon the 
man; it merely reflected the insane bitterness of the time. 
On his return to Maryland, Taney was greeted with a series 
of ovations. At Baltimore he was met by a multitude and 
conveyed in a barouche drawn by four white horses, es- 
corted by a cavalcade of several hundred horsemen, and 
given a dinner. Another dinner awaited him at Frederick, 
and another at Elkton, and each was made the occasion for a 
powerful speech which made an impression on the country. 

Thus the prolonged session of Congress, lasting almost 

* Letters and Times of the Tylers, 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS 353 

seven months, had accomplished nothing for the Bank. The 
anti-Jackson Senate had censured the President and ordered 
the restoration of the deposits. The Jacksonian House had 
declared against the restoration of the deposits, against the 
renewal of the charter, and had summoned Nicholas Biddle 
to its bar for contempt. The politicians had fought the 
battle in Congress to a deadlock, and the next and final fight 
was to be waged at the polls. 

We shall now note the effect of the sham battles of the 
Congress on the people. 



^ CHAPTER XIII 

POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 
I 

Philip Hone, seated in the little Senate Chamber, and still 
entranced with Clay's theatrical appeal to Van Buren, was 
awakened from his reverie by observing Webster beckoning 
him out of the room. The entertainer of the Whig celebrities 
followed the god of his idolatry to one of the committee 
rooms, where, for more than an hour, the orator "unburdened* 
his mind fully on the state of affairs and future prospects." 
The burden of it all was the importance of carrying the spring 
elections. When Hone called on Clay, he found him of the 
same opinion. "He says that the only hope is the election 
in our State and in Pennsylvania." Meeting John Quincy 
Adams, "that sagacious man," he found that the former 
President shared the belief that "our only hope lies in the 
elections in New York and Pennsylvania, particularly our 
charter election." * That the Administration forces and the 
Kitchen Cabinet were equally impressed with the strategic 
value of victories in New York City is disclosed in a letter 
from Major Lewis to James A. Hamilton, "Have you any 
doubt of succeeding at your election?" he wrote. "I hope 
not; yet I confess I have my fears. The strongest ground 
to take with the people is the fact, that under the existing 
arrangements with the State banks, the whole revenue col- 
lected through your customs house is left to be dispensed in 
your own city, instead of being transferred to a neighboring 
rival city. Our friends should ring the changes upon this 
view in every quarter of the city." ^ It is thus evident that 
the contending forces were concentrating for the election of 

^ Hone's Diary, March t, 5, 6, 1834. Hamilton's Reminiscences, 282. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA S55 

aldermen and a mayor in a city then numbering few more 
than 200,000 people. 

Early in March the Opposition deHberately made the 
Bank the issue by nominating Gulian C. Verplanck, driven 
from Congress by the Democrats because of his fidehty to the 
Bank, and planning for a popular vindication of that institu- 
tion. Two days later the Democrats nominated Cornelius 
W. Lawrence, who had been exceedingly bitter against the 
Bank while in Congress. Accepting Hone's opinion that 
"the personal characters of both the gentlemen is above re- 
proach," ^ the election would definitely determine the drift 
of public opinion on the contest then in its most bitter stage. 
The election returns were confusing. The mayoralty can- 
didate, who had been ousted from his seat in Congress be- 
cause of his support of Biddle, was defeated by the man whose 
bitterness against the Bank while in Congress had been 
notable. The Democrats won here, and the Opposition lost. 
The fact that the latter elected a majority of the aldermen 
was loudly hailed as a vote against Jackson on the Bank 
question, although, in the more spirited contest for the more 
important office, the Bank champion was overwhelmed by 
the Democrat. The Opposition was jubilant, or pretended 
to jubilation. A great celebration was held at Castle 
Garden, and the faithful poured forth by the tens of thous- 
ands to sit about the tables "spread in a row" and to do full 
justice to the "three pipes of wine and forty barrels of beer 
placed in the center under an awning." Full of fire and froth, 
the exuberant partisans, learning that Webster was the guest 
of a lady at her home, moved thence en masse, where the ora- 
tor, who had declined to appear among the beer kegs in the 
Garden, presented himself at the window and delivered "an 
address full of fire" which "was received with rapturous 
shouts." 2 All over the Eastern country' the Whigs insisted 
on accepting the defeat of the Bank candidate for mayor as 

» Hone's Diary. March 21, 1834. 2 Ibid., April 15, 1834. 



/ 



356 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

a victory for the Bank, and the Philadelphians had "a grand 
celebration at Powelton on the Schuylkill"; the Whigs of 
Albany "fired one hundred guns"; the Whigs of Buffalo 
"made a great affair of it with guns and illuminations"; 
those of Portsmouth "received the news with one hundred 
guns" and "had a. town meeting and made speeches."* 
Meanwhile the Democrats were proclaiming the election of 
Lawrence a Jacksonian triumph. After the various salutes 
from Portsmouth to the Battery of a hundred guns, and the 
celebration in the Garden among the beer kegs, the Demo- 
crats arranged their celebration for the day that Lawrence 
was to make his triumphant entry. A steamboat went down 
to Amboy to receive the mayor-elect, and "with colors flying 
and loud huzzas," the Jacksonians sat down to a dinner on 
board, " where Jackson toasts were drunk and Jackson 
speeches were made." Landing at Castle Garden, the new 
ma^^or was conducted in a " barouche drawn by four white 
horses, and paraded through the streets." ^ 

But the desperate Opposition, hard pressed, and requiring 
encouragement for its followers, succeeded, through exag- 
gerations and red fire, in convincing the rank and file that an 
anti-Jackson wave had swept the Nation. Rhode Island, 
never a Jackson State, went against the Democrats, and this 
was celebrated with as much enthusiasm as though a strong- 
hold of the enemy had been taken. The triumph of the Whigs 
in the Philadelphia ward elections was exploited as a signal 
triumph. Virginia, anti-Bank as well as anti-Jackson, was 
lost to the Democrats, and the Opposition interpreted it as , 
a pro-Bank as well as an anti-Jackson verdict. In Louisiana 
the Whigs won on the tariff, but the impression was given 
that the result reflected a popular resentment of the mistreat- 
ment of Nicholas Biddle. As a matter of fact, no intelligent 
politician could have attached any particular significance to 
the results of the spring elections, and the leaders immedi- 

1 Hone's Diary. April 23, 1834. * Ibid., May 12, 1834. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 357 

ately began their preparations for the congressional elections 
in the fall. 

r . ° 

6-In these elections the Opposition to Jacksonian Democracy 
was to fight for the first time under its new party name. In 
February, 1834, James Watson Webb, the unscrupulous 
speculator in Bank stock, and editor of the "Courier and 
Enquirer" of New York City, had proposed that the com- 
bination against the policies of Jackson should be known as 
the Whig Party. "It is a glorious name," said John Forsyth, 
"and I have no doubt they will disgrace it." Within six 
months the National Republicans and the Anti-Masons 
disappeared — united under the Whig banner. In Septem- 
ber, 1834, Niles records, in his "Register," that, "as if by 
universal consent, all parties opposed to the present Admin- 
istration call themselves Whigs." And all who called them- 
selves Whigs denounced the Jacksonians as Tories. It was a 
pretty conceit. The Whigs of England had fought the bat- 
tles of the people against the usurpations of the throne, and 
the Whigs of America were fighting the usurpations of Jack- 
son. The Constitution against anarchy, the people against 
the Power — such was the fight of Nicholas Biddle, Henry 
Clay, and John C. Calhoun against Jackson. 

A more incongruous combination of contradictions and a 
more sinister and unholy alliance than that of the Whigs of 
the Jacksonian period has never appeared in the political life 
of the Republic. These men held common opinions on none 
of the fundamental principles of government. A few years, 
and few of the leaders and founders could agree as to the 
character of the combination.^ The only plank in the plat- 
form of this ragged array on which all could stand was a 
hatred of Andrew Jackson. That was the open sesame to 

' Professor Tyler, in Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 478, graphically shows the 
hotchpotch nature of the alliance. 



358 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the temple. Beyond that no questions were asked. Born 
with the seed of inevitable disintegration, it was to stagger 
along through twenty years, to end without a mourner, and 
to leave no record worthy of an epitaph. And about the time 
of its birth, and after its insignificant successes in the spring 
elections, that astute journalist and politician, Thomas 
Ritchie, of the "Richmond Enquirer," foresaw its future 
with the clear light of a prophet. "When it comes to act 
upon any policy or principle," he wrote, "not connected 
with a hatred of Jackson, it must fall to pieces and com- 
mence a war mter se. It contains all the elements of dissolu- 
tion, and is destined to share the fate of other monstrous 
alliances." ^ 

But its creators were not concerned in 1834 with any- 
thing further than the overthrow of Jackson and his follow- 
ers. Not daring to advance a constructive programme, for 
the very effort would have wrecked the party, they confined 
themselves to extravagant and absurd denunciations of 
Jackson as a tyrant usurping power and clambering to a 
throne. The congressional campaign opened with a rush. 
All over the land the Whigs were raising liberty poles — 
because they were fighting the battle of liberty against the 
despot. And Nicholas Biddle and his Bank, as usual, wore 
the liberty cap. When Congress adjourned in June, the 
moneyed institution was in a dying condition, and the 
money market was again about normal. Only a signal 
Whig triumph could now save the institution on Chestnut 
Street. 

m 

With the adjournment of Congress, Jackson, with his cus- 
tomary complacency and confidence in the support of the 
people, set forth for the Hermitage for a much-needed rest. 
He had just again reorganized his Cabinet because of the fail- 

' Ambler's Thomas Ritchie. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 359 

ure of the Senate to confirm Taney and the resignation of 
Louis McLane. The motive for the latter's retirement is only 
conjectural. That he had never felt at home in the Cabinet 
circle, we may well believe. While in the Cabinet, he was not 
of it. But for the constant friendship and support of Van 
Buren, his position would have been delicate indeed. He was 
out of sympathy with Jackson at every stage of the Bank 
fight. He would have renewed the old charter without a 
change; would have renewed it with concessions from the 
Bank; but he would have renewed it. With the removal of 
the deposits he was entirely out of sympathy. He would 
not have removed them at all; but, if removed, he would not 
have removed them until Congress had convened. His so- 
cial affiliations were largely with the old official aristocracy. 
That he entertained presidential aspirations was generally 
understood, and it is quite possible that he considered a 
complete separation from the Administration advantageous 
to his interests. His associations were such that he could not 
have heard much that was not venomously hostile to Jackson 
and the Jacksonians. But, a gentleman of dignity, he with- 
drew gracefully, plunging into no undignified recriminations.^ 
In appointing his successor, Jackson turned to John 
Forsyth, whose services as Administration floor leader in the 
Senate had been of immense value, and whose urbanity, 
wisdom, conservatism, diplomatic experience, fitted him for 
the post better than any of his Jacksonian predecessors. To 
the place left vacant by Taney, he transferred Mr. Woodbury, 
and to the navy he appointed Mahlon Dickerson of New 
Jersey, a gentleman of extensive public experience as a Sena- 
tor for sixteen years. Just previous to his appointment, he 
had declined the Russian Mission. This was the only Cabinet 
upheaval of Jackson's time which had not been accompanied 
with much bitterness, with charges and countercharges. 

* Van Buren, finding his friend treacherous, discusses the resignation and the 
character of McLane at length in his Autobiography, 611. 



360 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Thus, with affairs in Washington in capable hands, with 
victory in the Bank fight on his side, with the dehghts of the 
Hermitage just beyond, the iron man set forth in high spirits 
and with no regrets or fears. The Biddle threat of more 
"disciphne" for the people during the summer and autumn, 
because of the failure of Congress to recharter the Bank, had 
not disturbed him so much as it had alarmed the Whigs. 
Those in Boston met the threat with a counter-threat of de- 
nunciation, and those in New York warned Biddle that more 
distress would certainly prove disastrous to the Whigs in the 
fall elections. Biddle deeply resented the criticism of the 
Whigs, who, under the leadership of Clay, had practically 
blackmailed him into using the Bank's power against the 
Democrats. When those of Boston warned that more dis- 
cipline of the people might "even create a necessity for the 
Whigs, in self-defense, to separate themselves entirely" from 
his institution, he wrote in defiant mood to the president of 
his Boston branch that "if . . . any political party or associa- 
tion desires to separate itself from the Bank — be it so." He 
had not read the letter to the board of directors lest the 
members favorable to the Democrats might use it to the dis- 
advantage of the Whigs. ^ But he was to find that his frown 
had lost its force. Another Whig from New York wrote 
of much dissatisfaction in that city and State among the 
Bank's friends and "those of influence in the Whig Party 
— and sure I am that it is increasing every day." The feeling 
was prevalent, encouraged by the views of Albert Gallatin, 
that the Bank could have relieved the distress had it so de- 
sired. And Alexander Hamilton, the brother of Jackson's 
friend, and son of the father of the National Bank, wrote a 
little later to a correspondent that "it has been found expe- 
dient to abandon the Bank in our political pilgrimage." He 
found that "the people are now familiarly acquainted with 
the immense power of a national bank and apprehend all 

^ Bidtlle to Appleton, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 240. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 361 

kinds of terrible consequences from its exercise.** * Thus, in- 
stead of more " discipline," the Bank found it possible to take 
steps, which, according to Catterall, justified Jackson, the 
following December, in saying in his Message that "the 
Bank . . . announced its ability and readiness to abandon 
the system of unparalleled curtailment . . . and to extend 
its accommodations to the community." 

Just, as in 1832, when floating down the Ohio on his last 
visit to the Hermitage during the presidential campaign, 
Andrew Jackson was at peace with himself and the world. 
But his friends had given orders to take nothing for granted 
and to open the fighting along the whole line. They had a 
twofold purpose — to hold the line in Congress, and to de- 
feat, wherever possible, any senatorial enemies who were 
candidates for reelection. Blair, of the "Globe," began to 
issue special editions and to send them broadcast all over the 
country. 

The fight, as it was waged in New York, Virginia, and 
Mississippi, will suflBce to illustrate the general character and 
method of the campaign. In all three States the Bank was 
the issue. Even the most hopeful of the Whigs entertained 
no illusions as to Pennsylvania, where the most powerful 
financial and commercial interests were arrayed with the 
Bank. The two parties in the Empire State were mobilized, 
organized on a military footing, and ready and eager for the 
fray.2 The elections in New Jersey and Pennsylvania were 
held in October, a month before those in New York, and the 
first shock to the Whigs came in the returns from these two 
States. That Pennsylvania, the home of Biddle, Sergeant, 
and Duane, should have gone against the Bank and for 
Jackson, was not disappointing, for little had been expected 
there. But much was expected in New Jersey. There the 
issue was distinct. The two Senators from that State had 

^ Hamilton to Woodworth, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, 244. 
* Hone's Diary, Oct. 4, 1834. 



362 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

voted with the Bank on the deposits question. The Legisla- 
ture had adopted resolutions commendatory of Jackson's 
actions, and in his Protest the fighting President had not 
scrupled to quote these resolutions to prove that the Sena- 
tors had deliberately misrepresented their people. Senator 
Frelinghuysen, in commenting upon these instructions, had 
boasted that he and his colleague had "dared to meet the 
frowns of their constituents," and would not "bow the knee 
to these instructions." ^ Now he was before the people for 
reelection, and the issue was plain. The people's verdict was 
unmistakable. The little State swept into the Jackson 
column with a substantial majority, and Frehnghuysen was 
retired. 

Goaded by the sting of the New Jersey defeat, the New 
York Whigs redoubled their efforts. "The Whigs are rais- 
ing liberty poles in all the wards," wrote Hone. "I went to 
one of these ceremonies yesterday at the corner of the Bow- 
ery and Hester Street. The pole, a hundred feet high, with 
a splendid cap and gilt vane with suitable devices, was es- 
corted by a procession of good men and true." ^ Thus, if the 
"mob" could make the welkin ring at Democratic meetings, 
the more aristocratic Whigs could sally forth from their 
counting-rooms and libraries to rub shoulders with the com- 
mon herd at Hester Street and the Bowery and shout ap- 
proval of the raising of a pole. But all was in vain. By 
nine o'clock on the evening of the first day. Hone and his 
fellow Whigs realized that ''enough was known to satisfy us 
to our hearts' content that we are beaten — badly beaten; 
worse than the least sanguine of us expected." ^ The jubilant 
Democrats, however, were determined that the Whig leaders 
should not feel utterly deserted, and a crowd of them surged 
before Hone's house with hisses and catcalls which kept him 
awake all night. The Lord Holland of the American Whigs, 
5vho was sick at the time, was inclined to resent it, but the 

1 Cong. Globe, i, 318. ^ Diary, Oct. 31, 1834. » /^., Nov. 5, 1834. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 363 



next evening he found consolation in dining with Webster 
who " was in a vein to be exceedingly pleasant." ^ 

Such was the intensity of feeling and the bitterness of the 
struggle that enthusiastic partisans partook of the nature of 
mobs in the larger centers. Nowhere were the Democrats so 
intense as in Philadelphia, where, on election day, the war- 
ring partisans exchanged shots, the headquarters of the 
Whigs was sacked and burned by a mob which drove back 
the firemen that attempted to quench the flames. A number 
of houses were completely reduced to ashes. Such was the 
panic of Nicholas Biddle that the day before the election he 
sent his wife and children into the country, filled his house 
with armed men, and prepared for a siege. The Bank build- 
ing bristled with the bayonets and muskets of guards. But 
when the gray dawn came, the one-time financial dictator 
found that none of his property had been molested. It was 
blow enough to him to learn that the Whigs, the country 
over, had gone down before the popular uprising. 

But the bitterest fight was waged in Virginia, where the 
situation was mixed to the point of chaos. The State was 
anti-Bank, but it was an ti- Jackson. Opposed to the Bank, it 
had been equally opposed to the removal of the deposits. 
The feeling in Richmond was so inflamed that only personal 
respect for Ritchie saved the "Enquirer " from mob violence, 
for the courageous editor stuck to his guns and tried to divert 
attention to the Bank itself. Administration papers were 
established throughout the State with instructions to follow 
the lead of his pen. The Virginia plan was twofold: to 
make the most of the unpopularity of Leigh, who was again 
a candidate for the Senate, and to divide and distract the 
Whigs by playing Clay against Calhoun. Nowhere did the 
Democrats appreciate, as they did in Virginia, the impos- 
sible nature of the Whig combination, and they dwelt upon 
its inconsistencies from the beginning. Clay announced 

» Diary, Nov. 6, 1834. 



364 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

that he was not a candidate for the presidential nomination 
in 1836. "But Mr. Clay knows not himself," wrote Ritchie. 
"But ambition does not burn so intensely in his bosom as it 
does in the heart of another leader of the Senate (Mr. Cal- 
houn) . If recent signs do not deceive us, this extraordinary 
man (extraordinary every way for the vigor of his mind, the 
variety of his principles, and the intensity of his ambition) 
will soon take the field, with feeble hopes of winning the 
votes of the South, as well as the support of the Bank. 
Then we shall see under which king the various members 
of the opposition will range themselves."^ This irrepressible 
conflict of Whig ambitions and interests was played upon by 
the Democratic press of Virginia all through the summer and 
autumn of 1834. 

But the immediate purpose of the Virginia Democrats was 
to humiliate Leigh, who was unpopular with the masses be- 
cause of his bitter fight in the Constitutional Convention 
against the extension of the suffrage. And he was as strongly 
with the Bank as Virginia was against it. A house-to-house 
canvass was made, and in districts where a majority were 
found against him it was proposed to evoke the right of 
instructions to Assemblymen. The plan succeeded to the 
extent of disclosing a majority hostile to the reelection of 
Leigh, but the Whigs, who carried the State, succeeded after 
a bitter struggle in returning him through a flagrant disre- 
gard of the expressed will of the constituencies. The battle 
was thus but half lost. The Democrats were supplied with 
ammunition they were to use with deadly effect, and within 
little more than a year they were to drive the two anti-Jack- 
son Senators of Virginia into private life. Ritchie began 
the next year's battle without delay. The "Enquirer" was 
flooded with resolutions and letters protesting the election 
of Leigh over the instructions of the majority of the people.^ 
V In Mississippi the Jacksonians determined to prevent the 

^ » Ambler's Tliomas Ritchie. 160. » Ibid., 166. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 365 

reelection of Senator Poindexter, long the idol of the Missis- 
sippi Democracy, who had turned upon Jackson with a viru- 
lence scarcely equaled by any old-line Federalist, and cast 
his lot with Clay. With the adjournment of Congress, the 
Mississippi Senator hastened home, where the enemies of the 
Administration had planned a series of banquets at which he 
was to denounce the President and vindicate himself. The 
Whigs were with him. The Democrats, delighted with a 
slashing and brilliant assault on Poindexter by Robert J. 
Walker, put that able publicist in the field, and within a 
week he was engaged in one of the most spectacular can- 
vasses Mississippi had ever known, firing enormous open-air 
meetings of frenzied Jacksonians. The outcome was the 
election of Walker — a victory sweet to Jackson, for it was 
the vanquished who had sponsored the resolution attacking 
his Protest.^ And the triumph was all the sweeter from the 
fact that, while Poindexter had supported the Nullifiers, 
Walker had taken the lead against them in Mississippi, on 
the platform, and through the press. 

Thus the elections of 1834 were more than pleasing to 
Jackson and his party. Two of his strongest senatorial op- 
ponents had lost their seats as a result of their opposition, 
and Leigh had been saved only by a disreputable betrayal of 
the people. In the Senate the Administration was strength- 
ened; and in the House the Democratic majority was re- 
duced but eight votes, leaving it a clear majority of 46 out 
of 242 members. J^ 

Strangely enough, so reliable an historian as McMaster 
has described these elections as a triumph of the Whigs. 
Such was not the interpretation of the Whigs themselves. 
Hone thought that they were "badly beaten — worse than 
the least sanguine of us expected." ^ Webster accepted the 

I The story of the Mississippi contest is told by Senator Foote in A Casket of Reiji- 
iniscences, 217-18. 
* Diary, Nov. 5, 1834. 



366 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

verdict as final, and, much to the distress and indignation of 
Biddle, announced that he was through. But the most con- 
chisive evidence of the contemporary opinion of the Whigs 
comes from Thurlow Weed, the sagacious Whig journaHst 
of the "Albany Journal." More prescient than most of the 
Whig leaders of the time, he had foreseen the inevitable re- 
sult of an attempt to win upon the Bank issue. Quite early, 
when Webster's keynote speech on the Bank, delivered at a 
mass meeting in Boston, was sent for publication to all the 
party papers, the copy that reached Weed never found its 
way into the "Albany Journal." ^ And immediately after the 
election in 1834, he editorially expressed the feeling which 
appears to have taken possession of the party generally. 
"There is one cause," he wrote, "for congratulations, con- 
nected with the recent election, in which even we partici- 
pate. It has terminated the United States Bank war. . . . 
We have from the beginning deprecated the successive con- 
flicts in defense of the Bank. . . . But we have gone with our 
friends through these three campaigns, under a strong and 
settled conviction that in every issue to be tried by the people 
to which the Bank was a party, we must be beaten. After 
struggling along from year to year with a doomed Bank upon 
our shoulders, both the Bank and our party are finally over- 
whelmed." ^ Nor is it surprising that Clay, whose selfishness 
had forced Biddle into making the recharter a campaign issue, 
was glad to dump the doomed Bank from his shoulders. It 
is impossible to follow his course, pointing as every act does 
to a purely party purpose, without arriving at the conviction 
that he really cared little about the institution on Chestnut 
Street. As the fight became more hopeless, he found the im- 
portunities of Biddle more irksome. Viewed purely as a po- 
litical or party contest, the clever politicians who dominated 
the Jacksonian camp had shown far more prescience and 
sagacity than the wisest of the Whigs. Amos Kendall had a 

^ Weed's Autobiography, i, 372. * Albany Journal, Nov. 15, 1834. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 367 

better understanding of the psychology of the masses than 
Clay or Webster. Among the Whigs, Weed alone saw the 
end from the beginning. The attempt to arouse the people 
in behalf of a great moneyed institution against the attacks 
of a popular hero was in itself a grotesque and ghastly ab- 
surdity. But after the decision had been made to under- 
take it, the methods of Biddle and his political allies made 
defeat a certainty. Frank Blair, of the "Globe," was evi- 
dently sincere in his assertion that had he been permitted 
to dictate the policy of the Whigs, he could not have hit 
upon a plan more satisfactory to the Democrats. 

That Jackson knew little of banking and advanced some 
strange theories in the course of the fight; that he resorted 
to methods of violence in some instances ; and that he 
fought to kill, rather than to reform, may be admitted. But 
the very nature of the fight he waged compelled the Bank 
to disclose its tremendous power over the prosperity of 
the people. No matter what they may have thought in the 
beginning, no one could have doubted toward the end that 
the Bank did have the power to precipitate panics, to punish 
the people for legislation it resented, to dominate, in the end, 
the legislation of the future by the threat of reprisal upon the 
business of the Nation. No one, in 1834, doubted that the 
National Bank, in the hands of a man like Biddle domineer- 
ing over pliant directors, and assuming dictatorial authority 
over the members of Congress, possessed powers incompat- 
ible with the preservation of the rights and liberties of the 
people. From that day on, the Bank has had its apologists 
among historians, and Jackson has been excoriated as an 
ignorant usurper, but there has never been a time since when 
the American people would have tolerated a return to the 
system that was destroyed. Through several years the coun- 
try was to be disturbed by the sometimes stumbling proc- 
esses of transition from the old to the new system, but the 
Bank fight ended with the verdict of the polls in 1834. Only 



368 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the censure of the Senate remained to poison the mind of 
the iron man in the White House. The Bank lingered on, a 
little while, under the laws of Pennsylvania, and then crashed 
to the earth, ruining many of its supporters.^ And on the 
banker's death. Hone copied into his diary the comment of 
William Cullen Bryant in the "New York Evening Post," 
that Biddle "died at his country seat where he passed the 
last of his days in elegant retirement, which, if justice had 
taken place, would have been spent in the penitentiary." ^ 
\ The prolonged battle has left a lasting impression upon the 
political life and methods of the Republic. It aroused, as 
never before, that class consciousness, to which politicians 
have ever since appealed; it gave dignity to demagogy, and 
made it pay. It marked the beginning of the active partici- 
pation of powerful corporations, as such, in the politics of the 
country, witnessed the adoption of the methods of intimida- 
tion and coercion, of systematic propaganda, of the subsi- 
dization of disreputable newspapers. From that day on, the 
powerful corporation has been anathema to the masses, mo- 
nopoly has been a red rag, and the contest between capital 
and labor has been a reality. If this has been unfortunate, the 
fault has been no less with Clay, who sought and made the 
issue, and with Biddle and his arrogant reliance on the power 
of money, than with Jackson and the Kitchen Cabinet who 

challenged the political pretensions of the Bank 

\ 

IV 

The Whig leaders entered upon the congressional session of 
December in a bitter mood. Calhoun was especially vicious 
and in a chronic rage against the President and the Admin- 
istration. The fury of the Whigs was not moderated by the 
fact that State Legislatures were beginning to demand 
the expunging from the records of the resolution of censure. 
Benton, in the previous session, had served notice of his in- 

» Hone's Dianj. April 17, and Dec. 14, 1841. « Ilnd., Jan. 18, 1844. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 369 

tention to move to expunge, and the Kitchen Cabinet in the 
meanwhile had been busy in building backfires against the 
offending Senators among their constituents. The first State 
to act was Alabama. The day before Senator King presented 
the Alabama resolutions, during a running discussion of the 
revelations of mismanagement and crookedness in the Post- 
Office Department, Senator Preston suggested that the Sen- 
ate should censure some one. Just whom he would censure 
was not made clear, but he did refer to the previous declara- 
tion of Jackson that he was responsible for the Executive de- 
partments. " Does any one doubt the turpitude of the Post- 
Office.^ " asked Preston. "When hardly the age of man, it 
is found steeped in corruption the most foul, the most mel- 
ancholy. If the President is responsible, and the oflSccrs 
acted improperly, is this the house to present the subject.^ 
And shall we stand by without saying or doing anything in 
regard to the present state of things in that department ? " 

Calhoun was instantly on his feet. He had listened to the 
report on the Post-Office "with sorrow and deep mortifica- 
tion." After twenty-two years of connection with the Gov- 
ernment he was able to say that " in all that time the charges 
of corruption against all the departments of the Government 
that he had ever heard of were not equal to the disclosures 
here made." In truth he thought that "the exhibition would 
disgrace the rottenest age of the Roman Republic." He 
hoped some resolution would be presented. 

This implied threat was not lost on the ever alert Benton, 
and on the following day he took the floor, reminded the 
Senate of his promise, declared that nothing less than the 
expurgation of the offensive censure would suffice, and 
served notice of his intention to present the resolution. This 
opened the first debate on expurgation. Clay, with a per- 
sonal fling at Benton, saltily expressed the hope that before 
acting the Missourian would carefully examine the Con- 
stitution, and concluded that he would "oppose such a res- 



370 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

olution at the very threshold." Preston conceded that his 
party had been "beaten down," and demanded to know 
whether "everything that we have done shall be expunged." 
Calhoun would "like to see a resolution which proposed to 
repeal the journal — to repeal a fact." If the thing could 
be done, "the Senate itself could be expunged," and the 
Government itself was at an end. He was "anxious to see 
who would attempt to carry out the doctrines of the Protest 
of last year — doctrines as despotic as those which were 
held by the autocrat of all the Russias." 

To this, Ejng took vigorous exception. The resolution of 
censure was not " a fact." "The Democracy of this land has 
spoken and pronounced its condemnation of the proceeding." 
He had hoped, when Calhoun declared on a previous occa- 
sion that he would act for the country, he would have little 
more to do with party, but he had since manifested a very 
different feeling. Stung by the taunt, Calhoun made no half- 
hearted denial of partisan bias. " I have no purpose to serve," 
he said. "I have no desire to be here." And then, with evi- 
dent insincerity, he added, "Sir, I would not turn upon my 
heel to be entrusted with the management of the Govern- 
ment." 1 

When, a few weeks later, the day before the expiration 
of the session, the discussion was renewed, Hugh Lawson 
White, now rapidly cooling to frigidity toward Jackson, 
moved to amend Benton's resolution by striking out the 
word "expunge" and substituting "rescind, reverse, and to 
make null and void." This incident has been given an his- 
torical importance beyond its due by many who have attrib- 
uted to the motion the final break between Jackson and 
White. The action of the Tennessee Senator unquestionably 
outraged the Jacksonians, who ascribed it to hostility, but 
such was not the dominating motive. He took the position 
that he could not vote to "obliterate and deface the journal 

1 Cong. Globe, i, 176. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 371 

of the Senate." Benton protested that the word "expunge" 
was strictly parliamentary. To his astonishment and cha- 
grin, he discovered that White was not the only Democrat 
who objected to his phrasing of the resolution, as others 
crowded about him to urge the acceptance of the amendment. 
Finding himself almost deserted, he afterwards said that he 
"yielded a mortifying and reluctant consent." ^ All this the 
proud Missourian could stand. But when Webster immedi- 
ately arose, and, after sounding the paean of triumph, moved 
that the resolution be laid upon the table; and after Clay and 
Calhoun had spoken with bitterness and contempt, the 
spirit of compromise died out in his heart, and he then and 
there promised himself to continue the battle. The debate 
was acrimonious in spirit, and in the midst of "great excite- 
ment." 2 This was the preliminary battle which was to have 
a spectacular ending in a Jacksonian triumph a short time 
before the expiration of the iron man's Presidency. 

V 

To the Jacksonians, the most distressing feature of the 
short session was the disclosure of the utter incompetency, 
blackened by positive crookedness, in the rapidly grow- 
ing Post-Office Department, which called for the man- 
agement of a man of more than ordinary organizing and 
business ability. Major Barry possessed neither qualifi- 
cation. An honest man himself, without the slightest 
business sense, easily imposed upon, surrounded by sub- 
ordinates who were scamps, and forced to deal with mail 
contractors who were criminals, he lost control early in his 
administration. When the Clayton investigation was com- 
pleted, the department was found honeycombed with fraud, 
plastered with forgeries, and in a hopeless financial condi- 
tion. And yet no one seriously suspected Barry of complic- 

^ Thirty Years' View, i, 550. 

* The words of the official reporter of the Congressional Globe. 



372 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ity. Clay, who had lost the support of Barry, his neighbor 
in Lexington, on the "bargain" story, did not hesitate to 
exonerate him from culpability. But there was no defense 
for the conditions, and Jackson, in his Message, had recom- 
mended a complete reorganization of the department better 
to safeguard the public interest. The two parties stood to- 
gether on the Reorganization Bill, and no member of either 
party attempted any justification of the conditions. But the 
Democrats were on their toes throughout the session to pre- 
vent any personal condemnation of either Barry or Jackson. 
The Whigs lost no opportunity to capitalize the scandal. 
The public money had been squandered. Crooked con- 
tractors had been permitted to loot the Treasury. They 
did not know the extent of the corruption, nor the responsi- 
bility of the head of the department, but they did know 
that the putridity of the thing had never been approached 
in American history. The majority report of the investigat- 
ing committee found a deficit of $800,000; the minority 
placed the amount at $300,000; but both agreed that it was 
due in part at least to maladministration.^ Felix Grundy, 
who had charge for the Administration, rejoiced in the fact, 
*'to the honor of his countrymen," that no one "had been 
found to accuse the Postmaster-General of corruption";^ 
and Senator Bibb of Kentucky, a supporter of Clay, paid 
tribute to the personal qualities of Barry and ascribed the 
failure to "the good disposition and kindness" of the head 
of the department, which had been imposed upon by "inter- 
ested and selfish persons to further their own private inter- 
ests." Thus, in the Senate, the debate on the Reorganiza- 
tion Bill was conducted with decorum and without exciting 
personahties. An utter lack of system, a director deficient in 
business sense and over-credulous, and all preyed upon by 

1 Professor MacDonald, in Jacksoman Democracy, p. 246, says that "a large part 
of the deficit, however, was fairly chargeable to the cost of the large number of 
post-offices and post-routes established in 1832." 

2 Cong. Globe, i, 206, 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 373 

dishonest subordinates and criminally inclined speculators — • 
such was the sense of the Senate. 

But in the House, Barry's personal integrity was not to go 
unchallenged. In the lower branch he was unfortunate in 
friends who loved, not wisely, but too well, who thought 
to prevent assault by challenging it. Some of these had 
avowed a disposition to consider such an assault a personal 
offense. During a night session, William C. Johnson of Mary- 
land, a promising and eloquent young Whig of imposing 
personal appearance, sought an opportunity to affront Rep- 
resentative Hawes of Kentucky, a member of the special 
dueling club. An insignificant incident during the discussion 
of a post-route bill suflBced. On obtaining the floor, Johnson 
looked significantly at Hawes, and with sinister deliberation 
began: "It has been broadly hinted by some gentlemen . . . 
that he who shall have the temerity to criticize the acts of the 
Postmaster-General must answer therefor elsewhere than in 
this hall. . . . Sir, I come from a portion of the country where 
the law of personal responsibility is recognized among gen- 
tlemen. I hold myself amenable to that law . . .; and now, 
in the face of those menaces which have been thrown out on 
this floor, and intending to be responsible for what I am 
about to say, I declare that the Post-Office Department is 
corrupt from head to foot, through and through, and I be- 
lieve that the head of the department, William T. Barry, is 
as culpable as any officer under his control." 

The House was instantly in an uproar as Hawes rose to 
ask if Johnson meant that the department was corrupt from 
Barry down. The young blade from Maryland jauntily 
replied in the affirmative. Hawes said that Barry was "as 
honest and honorable as any man who has a seat on this 
floor," and asked Johnson for the grounds for his charge. In 
the spirit of swashbuckler he had set out to be, the latter 
merely reiterated what he had said. There was no misunder- 
standing the meaning of the situation — it meant a duel un- 



374 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

less Johnson would agree to a qualification of his statement. 
To all such appeals he was adamant. When, as a result, he 
was challenged by Barry's son, he began to hedge with the 
demand that the duel take place "immediately." He would 
not even consent to a day's delay, and young Barry withdrew 
the challenge. The incident proved nothing except that 
in the Thirties young men carried chips on their shoulders, 
and bandied words lightly. 

The contemporaries of Barry exonerated him, and history 
has acquiesced in their verdict.^ But it was apparent that 
his usefulness in the Cabinet was over. He had never been 
qualified. While the debate on the Reorganization Bill was 
still in progress, Jackson summoned Amos Kendall to the 
task of assuming charge and placing the department on 
a business basis. At that time, the wizard of the Kitchen 
Cabinet, in ill health, and without private means, was 
planning to retire from the public service to serve his fam- 
ily more satisfactorily in a financial way. He demurred — ■ 
Jackson insisted — and in the end, like the good soldier that 
he was, he yielded. 

Barry, gracefully let out with the mission to Spain, sailed 
away, to die in London on the way, and Kendall took charge. 
It is amazing that the party prejudices of ninety years ago 
should still persist and refuse justice to the genius of this 
exceptional man. Professor MacDonald does not overstate 
when he describes him "as a man of remarkable adminis- 
trative power." 2 Nor is it probable that so seasoned an 
observer of public men as Senator Foote was unduly im- 
pressed when he described him as "discoursing upon the 
gravest and most important questions with a profundity 
and power which left a lasting impress."^ Brilliant with the 
pen, sagacious beyond almost any man of his time as a poli- 

' Cong. Globe, i, 283, merely refers to the excitement. Sargent's Public Men and 
Events gives the details. 

* Jacksonian Democracy, 51. ^ A Casket of Reminiscences, 65. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA S76 

tician, wise in counsel, and yet capable of managing the dry- 
as-dust details of the most practical of departments, Amos 
Kendall is probably one of the greatest all-around publicists 
the Republic has produced. 

His first step on taking charge was thoroughly to familiar- 
ize himself with the minute details of his office, with the 
special functions of each subordinate, and the character of 
the man. He soon discovered the secret of the good-natured 
Barry's undoing, when a clerk, suspected of having relations 
with a contractor as agent, approached him ingratiatingly 
with the announcement that he "had control of funds and 
would be happy to accommodate him with loans." He was 
promptly discharged.^ After a thorough survey, Kendall 
concluded that "a few powerful mail contractors, through 
favors to the officers and more influential clerks, had really 
controlled the department, and for their own selfish ends, 
and been the cause of all its embarrassments." ^ He adopted 
stringent rules for the guidance of employees. The accept- 
ance of a gift was to mean dismissal. So, too, with free 
rides on stage-coaches, steamboats, or railroad cars carrying 
mail. Applying the rules as rigidly to himself as to others, 
he promptly returned all presents and free tickets, and thence- 
forward the Postmaster-General paid his way. But the task 
confronting him was tremendous. The department v/as 
deeply in debt and was sinking deeper. Not satisfied with 
the showing of corruption by the congressional committee, 
he went over the ground and uncovered crookedness it had 
overlooked. The postmaster of New York was caught in the 
net and instantly dismissed. Some powerful and influential 
contractors who had carried the mail between Washington 
and Philadelphia were suspected, and Kendall made a 
searching investigation. Major Barry, still in Washington 
at this time, became seriously disturbed, and conceived the 
notion that his successor was bent on embarrassing him, 

^ Kendall's Autobiography, 337. * Ibid. 



376 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

and Kendall, who had no suspicion of his predecessor, sent 
for him and personally reassured him. But there were other 
embarrassments within the Administration household. Mrs. 
Eaton, then in Washington, and intimate with the family of 
one of the contractors who was pressing a claim that Kendall 
was examining, called one day on Mrs. Kendall with the bald 
proposition that if the claim were allowed, the contractor 
would present the wife of the Postmaster-General with "a 
carriage and a pair of horses," The incident was promptly 
reported to Kendall, who recorded the story many years 
later. ^ Applying himself and his administrative genius 
diligently to his task, driving out the incompetent and 
corrupt, practicing economy while extending the scope of 
the department's services, he soon put it on a paying basis, 
and before the expiration of Jackson's Administration, less 
than two years later, wiped out the deficit. This is the man 
some historians have described as a vulgar politician and 
a "printer." 

VI 

No incident of this session so well illustrates the partisan bit- 
terness and the venomous nature of the hates engendered 
by the struggles of the preceding years as the attempt on the 
life of Jackson at the Capitol on January 30, 1835. ^ Under 
normal conditions and in ordinary times the incident would 
have been dismissed, and, properly, ascribed to the insan- 
ity of the assailant. But it was the first time an attempt 
had been made upon the life of a President — and it was 
a President who had been intemperately denounced as a 
tyrant, despot, and wrecker of American institutions and 
liberties. Just as John Tyler had instantly thought of 
"political effect,"^ the ardent friends of Jackson caught 

* Autobiography, 351. 

2 Miss Martineau graphically describes the attempt in her Retrospect of Western 
Travel, i, 161. 
' Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 509. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 377 

the same idea from the opposite angle. And two days later, 
Frank Blair in the "Globe" threw out the suggestion of a 
conspiracy. "Whether Lawrence [the assailant] has caught, 
in his visits to the Capitol, the mania which has prevailed the 
last two sessions of the Senate," he wrote, "whether he has 
become infatuated with the chimeras which have troubled 
the brains of the disappointed and ambitious orators who 
have depicted the President as a Caesar who ought to have a 
Brutus; as a Cromwell, a Nero, a Tiberius, we know not. If 
no secret conspiracy has prompted the perpetration of the 
horrid deed, we think it not improbable that some delusion of 
intellect has grown out of his visits to the Capitol, and that 
hearing despotism and every horrible mischief threatened to 
the Republic, and revolution and all its train of calamities 
imputed as the necessary consequence of the President's 
measures, it may be that the infatuated man fancied that 
he had reason to become his country's avenger. If he had 
heard and believed Mr. Calhoun's speech of day before 
yesterday, he would have found in it ample justification for 
his attempt on one who was represented as the cause of the 
most dreadful calamities of the Nation; as one who made 
perfect rottenness and corruption to pervade the vitals of the 
Government, insomuch that it was scarcely worth preserv- 
ing, if it were possible." ^ 

The intimation here thrown out was bitterly resented by 
the Opposition leaders, and particularly by Calhoun, who 
was mentioned. The very fact that the intemperate and 
insincere denunciations of high officials as responsible for 
the distress of the people, acting upon the diseased brain, 
can very easily persuade the madman to constitute himself 
the executioner, served to infuriate the orators who had 
given themselves full play. Stung to the quick, Calhoun de- 
nounced the "Globe " as " base and prostitute," and described 
it as "the authentic and established organ " of Jackson, "sus- 

» Washington Globe, Feb. 2, 1835. 



S78 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

tained by his power and pampered by his hands." " To what 
are we coming?" he exclaimed. "We are told that to de- 
nounce the abuse of the Administration even in general 
terms, without personal reference, is to instigate the assas- 
sination of the Chief Executive. ... I have made up my 
mind as to my duty. I am no candidate for any office — I 
neither seek nor desire place — nothing shall intimidate — 
nothing shall prevent me from doing what I believe is due to 
my conscience and my country." ^ Mr. Calhoun sat down 
— and Mr. Leigh immediately rose to present a report from 
the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. 

But Mr. Calhoun's attack on the "Globe" was not un- 
noticed by Blair, who replied by quoting from the most 
venomous portions of Calhoun's and Preston's tirades on the 
Post-Office report. A week later the Administration organ 
was still harping on conspiracy. "Every hour," wrote Blair, 
"brings new proof to show that Lawrence has been operated 
on to seek the President's life, precisely as we had supposed 
from the moment we learned that he had been an attendant 
on the debates in Congress." ^ 

Very soon the capital was startled with the connection of 
Senator Poindexter's name with that of the assailant. The 
obsession took possession of Jackson that his Mississippi 
enemy had instigated the attempt at assassination. The ex- 
amination of Lawrence had clearly established his insanity; 
just as clearly shown that he had taken to heart the charges 
of Jackson's enemies that he was responsible for the distress 
of the people. Finding himself hard pressed by fate, and 
ascribing his unhappiness to the tyranny of Jackson, he had 
determined to kill him. That explanation was convincing and 
sufficient. But the suggestion that Poindexter had planned 
the deed fell on receptive soil. Affidavits had been placed 
in Jackson's hands to the effect that "a gentleman who 
boarded in the same house informed him that Mr. Poin- 

» Cong. Globe, i, 183-84. » Washington Globe, Feb. 7, 1835. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 379 

dexter had interviews with Lawrence but a few days before 
the attempt on the President's life." Some time before the 
attack, "a captain in high standing in the navy" had said 
that Poindexter, on a voyage to New Orleans, had threat- 
ened to demand personal satisfaction of Jackson, and if 
he refused "he would shoot him wherever he saw him." 
This had caused such anxiety to Jackson's friends that the 
Reverend Mr. Hatch, chaplain of the Senate, had personally 
informed Jackson of the threat. All this, followed, after the 
assault, with an affidavit that Lawrence had been seen to 
"go repeatedly to Poindexter 's residence," thoroughly con- 
vinced Jackson, who appears to have been in a morbid con- 
dition like his enemies. ^ He excitedly charged it in conversa- 
tion with callers at the White House. Miss Martineau, who 
was friendly with the Poindexters, and apparently fond of 
the Senator, was literally forced to leave the White House by 
the abusive denunciation of the Mississippian. She became 
his ardent partisan, and took pains to record in her book that, 
on visiting the Poindexters on the night of the assault, she 
had "greatly admired the moderation with which Mr. Poin- 
dexter spoke of his foe." ^ 

Hearing from many quarters of Jackson's charges, Poin- 
dexter wrote him that he would discredit the reports un- 
less confirmed by the President, but that a failure to reply 
would be accepted as a confirmation. Jackson displayed Poin- 
dexter's letter to visitors, but made no response. Thus a 
perfectly foolish notion of Jackson's was forced to an issue. 
To understand the feeling behind it all, and to appreciate 
the bitter hostility of Poindexter, to which frequent refer- 
ence has been made, it is necessary to know more of the char- 
acter and career of this really remarkable but tragic figure. 
George Poindexter was something of a genius, and, until 
his break with Jackson, an idol of Mississippi. From the 

1 Washington Globe, Feb. 23. 1835, sets forth all these facts. 
* Retrospect of Western Travel, i, 163. 



380 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

beginning he had been accorded the leadership of the Demo- 
cratic or Jeffersonian Party in that Territory. His early con- 
gressional career was a justification of his leadership. One 
who knew him in those days tells us that "his mind was 
logical and strong; his conception was quick and acute; his 
powers of combination and application were astonishing; his 
wit was pointed and caustic, and his sarcasm overwhelm- 
ing." ^ These qualities made him a tremendous power upon 
the stump with the then primitive people of his State. In 
the gubernatorial office he rendered invaluable service which j 
strengthened his hold upon the masses. On the bench, he 
was noted for his ability and justice, and, among the lawyers, 
he was conceded to have few equals before a jury. During 
the War of 1812 he had further endeared himself to the 
Mississippians by his patriotic appeal for preparation, and, 
after he had aroused the Territory to fever heat, and Jack- 
son had appeared upon the scene, he became a volunteer aid 
upon the staff of the future President. It was to Poindexter 
that the negro or soldier carried the infamous British counter- 
sign, "Booty and Beauty," and it was Poindexter who con- 
veyed it to Jackson. Later his enemies charged that he had 
forged it to win the favor of the General. That such a man 
should have made enemies was inevitable. So bitter were his 
denunciations of his political enemies, so unscrupulous his 
use of terms, that at one time a conspiracy was formed to 
force him into a duel and kill him. The opportunity came 
after a peculiarly vitriolic attack upon a wealthy merchant 
who affiliated with the Federalists. The merchant chal- 
lenged and was killed. Then Poindexter's enemies charged 
that he had fired before the word was given. 

Nowhere in the campaign of 1828 did Jackson receive 
more ardent support than in Mississippi where his old friend 
Poindexter directed his forces, and one year after his in- 
auguration, the lieutenant entered the Senate, and almost 

* Sparks, Memories of Fifty Years, 335. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 381 

immediately the feud between the erstwhile friends began. 
The sordid feature of the story is the fact that it grew out of 
a patronage controversy. Jackson had determined on the ap- 
pointment of a Tennesseean, a neighbor of the Hermitage, to 
the land office of Mississippi. Poindexter protested that this 
patronage belonged to his State and to him. Jackson refused 
to yield. Poindexter prevented the confirmation of the Ten- 
nesseean. Jackson made a recess appointment, and thence- 
forward the two comrades of 1812 were at swords' points. 
Thus far Jackson was manifestly in the wrong. His loyalty 
to friendship cannot explain his disloyalty to Poindexter — • 
who was also a friend, and a friend in need. But such was 
the Mississippian's prejudice and hate that he abandoned, 
not only the President and purely Administration measures, 
but the principles he had espoused and advocated for a 
generation. He crossed the Rubicon, burned the bridges, and 
became a special favorite of Clay's. In every great fight of 
the Jackson period, Poindexter was found arrayed with the 
Opposition. He stood with the Bank, favored the censure, 
and offered the resolutions denunciatory of the Protest. In 
the Nullification contest, he had essayed to lead the Nulli- 
fiers, and became more offensive than Calhoun. 

Unfortunately for Poindexter, in the fighting that fol- 
lowed he was far from invulnerable on the personal side. 
Having been unfortunate in his domestic relations, he had 
divorced his wife, denied the paternity of his children, and 
plunged into the most reckless dissipation.^ His indecent 
reflections upon the purity of his wife drove her family, 
extensive and influential, to his enemies; his intemperate 
tirades against Jackson alienated the dominant Democratic 
sentiment of the State; and while he fought boldly and bit- 
terly to sustain himself, he failed, and, at the time of the 
attack on Jackson by the madman at the Capitol, was so 
discredited in Mississippi that he was planning to leave the 

^ Sparks, Memories of Fifty Years, 



382 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

State, with his second wife, on the expiration of his term. A 
man of genius whose morals failed to sustain his mentality 
— such the epitaph of George Poindexter.^ 

Three weeks after Lawrence had fired and failed, Poin- 
dexter called the Senate's attention to an anonymous letter 
stating that affidavits were in the hands of the President 
charging that interviews had taken place between the assail- 
ant and himself a few days before the attempt on Jackson's 
life, and asking the appointment of a special committee of 
investigation. Henry Clay, avowing that the rumors "in- 
spired him with nothing but the deepest mortification and 
regret," and that it was "impossible to credit the statement 
that affidavits should have been procured at the instance of 
the Chief Executive for the purpose of implicating a Senator 
of the United States in so foul a transaction," reluctantly 
consented to an investigation. Without further discussion, 
a committee, consisting of John Tyler, chairman. Smith, 
Mangum, Ejng, and Silas Wright, was appointed, with per- 
mission to sit during the sessions of the Senate; and three 
days later it unanimously exonerated Poindexter from sus- 
picion. Webster asked for the yeas and nays on its accept- 
ance; every Senator voted yea, and thus ended the most 
unfortunate incident in the career of Andrew Jackson. The 
"Washington Globe," which had pubHshed the affidavits, 
wholly discredited them about the same time.^ 

vn 

The Calhoun inquiry "into the extent of federal patronage, 
the circumstances which have contributed to its great in- 
crease of late, the expediency and practicability of reducing 
the same, and the means of such reduction," served further 
to fan the flames of partisan madness during this session. 

* Sparks, Memories of Fifty Years, 336-41 ; also, Foote's Catkel of Reminiscences, 
218-20. 
2 Washington Globe, Feb. 28, 1835. 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 383 

Persisting in the fallacy that he was not moved by partisan 
or political considerations, he suggested that the committee 
be composed of two members of each party. The Senate, 
however, was not deceived as to his purpose, and selected 
four enemies of the Administration, Calhoun, Webster, 
Southard, and Bibb, and two Democrats, Benton, and King 
of Georgia. In due time an elaborate report was submitted. 
It set forth that 60,294 persons were in the employ of the 
Government;. that together with the pensioners this meant 
more than 100,000 dependent on the Treasury. Implying 
that these constituted a federal machine, Calhoun added all 
engaged in business who .wished to furnish supplies as part 
of the organization, influenced by patronage. Worse — there 
were thousands who wished to get upon the pay-roll who 
would willingly play the part of pliant tools to curry favor 
with Executive power. And how was this to be remedied.? 
Since one of the causes contributing to the enlargement of 
the President's patronage was the increase in governmental 
expenditure, the statesmanlike thing to do would be to reduce 
the revenue. A great amount of public land had been thrown 
upon the market, calling for an army of receivers, registers, 
and surveyors — all of whom were tools of Jackson. The 
Jacksonian policy of removing men from office to make way 
for henchmen had reduced the efficiency of the public serv- 
ice by making reappointments dependent on something other 
than faithful service. This, by making the officials dependent 
upon the President, tended to make them all subservient to 
his will, and little better than his slaves. More: the power 
assumed by the President to select the banks for the public 
deposits made them a part of the presidential machine. If 
the public revenue could be reduced, and the Government 
thus starved, many would be forced from the public crib, 
but unhappily this could not be done. He proposed, there- 
fore, a constitutional amendment permitting the annual dis- 
tribution of the surplus till 1843 by a division of it into as 



384 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

many shares as there were Senators and Representatives, 
with ten shares for each Territory and the District of Co- 
lumbia. And in addition to all this, he would enact a law 
to regulate the deposits of public money, and another to 
repeal that part of the Act of 1820 which limited the terms 
of customs officers. 

When the report was submitted to the Senate, Poindexter 
made it the occasion for mournful and indignant reflections 
upon the growing tyranny of Jackson. He was profoundly 
moved by the revelations. Surely as many as thirty thousand 
extra copies of the report should be published for distribution. 
*'The question now submitted to the Nation," he said, *'is 
whether power is to be perpetuated in the hands of him who 
now wields it, and the one he may select as his successor." 
It was most unfortunate that the people would not awaken 
to the sinister attacks upon their liberties and institutions. 
The thoughtful, however, could not but see the trend. 

But why print thirty thousand copies, asked King of Geor- 
gia, if not to serve a party purpose at the expense of the tax- 
payers? "What a spectacle we do present from day to day!" 
he exclaimed. "The Senate has been a week making war 
on the extras of the Post-Office Department. We are now war- 
ring against the extravagance of the Executive; and whilst 
brandishing the sword in one hand in defense of the public 
Treasury against the ravages of the Executive, we are, with 
the other, slipping it into our own pockets, or scattering it 
in profuse and wasteful extravagance." 

The Senate compromised on ten thousand copies, and a 
rather dull debate, in which the Bank question was revived, 
resulted. The bills proposed by the Whig committee passed 
the Whig Senate to be promptly rejected in the Democratic 
House. These measures merely served as pegs on which to 
hang further denunciations of Jackson and his policies. 

And the Democrats countered with an enthusiastic ban- 
quet in celebration of the wiping-out of the national debt for 



POLITICAL HYDROPHOBIA 385 

the first time in history. This had been one of Jackson's 
ambitions — a consummation Clay had determined should 
not come before the presidential election of 1832. But it 
could not be prevented; and while the "Whigs were expanding 
on extravagance and the crowded public crib, the Jacksoni- 
ans were pointing to the extinguishment of the public debt 
as an answer to the attacks. Benton, who presided as toast- 
master at the banquet, was in flamboyant mood. 

"The national debt is paid," he said. "This month of 
January, 1835, in the fifty-eighth year of the Republic, An- 
drew Jackson being President, the national debt is paid, and 
the apparition, so long unseen on earth — a great nation 
without a national debt — stands revealed to the astonished 
vision of a wondering world. Gentlemen, my heart is in this 
double celebration, and I offer you a sentiment, which, com- 
ing directly from my own bosom, will find its response in 
yours: President Jackson: may the evening of his days be as 
tranquil and as happy for himself as their meridian has been 
resplendent, glorious, and beneficent for his country." 

Such was the partisan madness of this short session that 
a resolution, offered and urged by Preston, the Whig, for the 
purchase of some pictures for "the President's house," was 
promptly voted down, and Preston's efforts to have the vote 
reconsidered were unavailing. It was into this madhouse of 
partisan rancor that the French crisis, threatening war, in- 
volving the world prestige of the Republic, had been thrown 
by Jackson; and we shall now note how nearly partisanship 
came to compromising and weakening the Nation in the face 
of a foreign antagonist. 






CHAPTER XIV 

WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 

I 

The most important battle of the short session of 1834-35 
was waged over Jackson's determination to compel France 
to observe her obligations under the treaty signed in Paris 
and Washington in July, 1831. After futile efforts by the 
four preceding Administrations to bring France to the pay- 
ment of an indemnity for losses to American vessels during 
the Napoleonic wars, Jackson succeeded in negotiating a 
treaty in which France stipulated to pay the United States 
five millions in six annual installments, and we agreed to the 
reduction of duties on French wines. We immediately con- 
formed to our agreement, but the French manifested no such 
respect for their obligations. Several sessions of the French 
Chamber failed to make appropriations for the payments, 
notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of Washington. 
Thoroughly vexed at the contemptuous indifference of Paris, 
Jackson withdrew Livingston from the State Department, 
and sent him to the French Court to insist upon the discharge 
of the treaty obligations. Before the crisis came, he had 
summoned to his side as Secretary of State the courtly and 
able John Forsyth, concerning whom the American people 
know all too little. In view of the tendency to picture the 
Jackson of the French crisis as a bull in a china shop, it is 
worth while to consider the characters of the men who were, 
at this time, his advisers in foreign affairs. The character 
of Livingston has been described. 

In the Washington of the Thirties no public man was more 
generally respected and admired for ability and elegance of 
manner than the new Secretary of State. This courtliness 




JOHN FORSYTH 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 387 

of demeanor was an inheritance from his French ancestors.* 
In person he was notably handsome, well built, with classi- 
cal features; and his manners were those of the drawing-room 
and the Court. One who knew him has written that "in the 
times of Louis XIV he would have rivaled the most cele- 
brated courtier; and under the dynasty of Napoleon he would 
have won the baton of France." ^ Another has described him 
as "Lord Chesterfield, minus his powdered wig and knee 
buckles," and as "all duke and all democrat." ^ Even-tem- 
pered, seldom giving way to passion, rich in a sense of humor, 
he was one of the few statesmen of his time who could find an 
equal welcome in the drawing-rooms of Whigs or Democrats. 
He was intensely social, and prone to fritter away valuable 
time in polite conversation with the pretty women of the 
capital, albeit a perfect husband, ardently devoted to the 
accomplished daughter of Dr. Josiah Meigs, whom he had 
married.'' Cultivated, polished, graceful, he was the perfect 
gentleman and conversationalist. 

As an orator, he was one of the most consummate of his 
time, singularly free from the then prevailing vice of tearing a 
passion to tatters. With a glance of the eye, a movement of 
the finger, a mild gesture of the hand, he could convey subtle 
meaning, and in his expressions of contempt he required 
nothing more than a twitch of the Roman nose or a scornful 
curl of the lip.^ His voice, rich and musical, was as carefully 
trained as that of a prima donna. One writer compared it to 
a trumpet, "clear and piercing in its tones, and yet as soft 
as an organ." « Another, referring to "the constant stream of 
pure vocalization,' described it as "clear and resonant, al- 

^ Forsyth of Nydie, by Forsyth de Fronsac, 

* J. F. H. Claiborne, in The Cabinet: Past and Present. 
' Knight's Reminiscences of Famous Georgians. 

* In a letter written Mrs. Forsyth on board the U.S.S. Hornet bearing him to the 
Court of Spain, now in possession of Waddy Wood, a descendant, Washington, D.C., 
the beautiful relations of the Forsyths are impressively disclosed. 

* Miller's Bench and Bar of Georgia. ^ Ibid. • 



388 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

ways pleasant to the ear, and perfectly modulated." ^ A con- 
temporary writer for the "Boston Post" recorded that "the 
rhythmic accents of his voice suggested the musical notes of 
the ^olian harp." ^ 

By the common verdict of all contemporaries he was the 
most powerful debater of his day, and as the floor leader in 
the Senate, he was a tower of strength to the Administration 
before entering the Cabinet. A competent critic wrote that 
"as an impromptu debater to bring on an action or to cover 
a retreat, he never had a superior"; was "acute, full of re- 
sources, and ever prompt — impetuous as Murat in charge, 
adroit as Soult when flanked and outnumbered," "haughty 
in the presence of enemies, and affable and winning among 
friends." ^ Another thought him as adroit a debater as ever 
lived — "the Ajax Telamon of his party." ^ When the fight 
was made against the confirmation of Van Buren, the Admin- 
istration rested its case against the attacks of Clay and Web- 
ster on his presentation. In the campaign of 1832, it sum- 
moned him to make the one speech upon the tariff, and then 
dismissed the topic definitely. When, at a critical moment 
in the Nullification movement, Georgia was about to be 
swept into the fallacy under the leadership of Berrien, in a 
convention called specifically for that purpose, it was Forsyth 
who was dispatched to take charge of the Administration 
forces, and, under his brilliant management, the Nullifiers 
were defeated in the presence of Chancellor Harper, who had 
been summoned from South Carolina to witness the triumph 
of the sinister doctrine.^ During the panic session, it was 
upon his sarcasm that the Jacksonians largely relied to mini- 
mize the effect of the exaggerated speeches and the lugu- 
brious petitions and memorials. 

^ Northern's Men of Mark in Georgia. 
^ Knight's Reminiscences of Famous Georgians. 
5 Claiborne's The Cabinet: Past and Present. 
* Sparks, Memories of Fifty Years. 

^ See Footc's Casket of Reminiscences; Miller's Bench and Bar of Georgia; and 
NortherD's Men of Mark in Georgia. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 389 

And yet, ardent though he was in his partisanship, he com- 
manded the affectionate esteem of his opponents by his man- 
liness and fairness. When the "bargain" charge was made 
against Clay, it was Forsyth who demanded an investigation 
in the interest of justice, thereby incurring the displeasure of 
many of his associates. Even Adams found him fair. 

In many respects he fails to fit in with the Jacksonian pic- 
ture. He was temperamentally an aristocrat, like Livingston, 
rather cynical toward the masses, and not at all enamoured of 
the Kitchen Cabinet. The letter from his son-in-law during 
the first Cabinet dissensions, expressing the hope that Jack- 
son would "send off Lewis and Kendall," was doubtless writ- 
ten in the confidence that the sentiment would meet with 
the approval of the recipient.^ But Forsyth was too much 
the man of the world to quarrel over details or personalities, 
and in the company of Van Buren and Livingston, he was 
able to forget the Kendalls and the Blairs. 

When he entered the Cabinet, he assumed tasks that were 
to his taste. He prided himself particularly upon his diplo- 
macy, and his experience as Minister to Madrid to negotiate 
the purchase of Florida justified his confidence. This position 
called for great address, finesse, a knowledge of human na- 
ture, and infinite patience, persuasiveness, and tact. The 
cunning Ferdinand, who needed the money, but was loath 
to part with his possession, was inclined to haggle, and, while 
history has given credit for the success of the negotiations 
to the instructions of Adams, it was the ingratiating quali- 
ties of Forsyth that finally overcame the scruples of the King. 

That a President so impetuous as Jackson should have 
been served in foreign affairs by men of the conservatism and 
caution of Van Buren, Livingston, and Forsyth seems provi- 
dential. One day, after dinner, Jackson sat before the fire in 
the White House smoking his pipe and outlining plans for 

^ This letter from Arthur Schaaf to Forsyth, written from Georgetown, June 25, 
1831, is in possession of Waddy Wood, Washington, D.C. 



390 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

radical action on the Oregon boundary dispute that would 
have made war inevitable. Forsyth, to whom he was speak- 
ing, observing his dangerous mood, simulated sympathy with 
his indignation. Then he began with quiet suggestions. 
Perhaps Jackson's plan would seem to be a plan to force a 
fight. It might put the country in the wrong light. Then, 
too, he recalled that the offensive action proposed in Par- 
liament had been dropped on the request of the British Min- 
ister for Foreign Affairs. Possibly the London Government 
did not sympathize with the faction seeking trouble. Again, 
a year's notice would have to be given, preliminary to any 
action by the United States, and Jackson's Administration 
would then be drawing to a close. Possibly it might be best 
to do nothing. The President sat a few moments looking 
into the fire, and then, slowly refilling and lighting his pipe, 
he concluded — "I reckon you're right, Forsyth; at least 
you're right now." 

Such was the man who, with the assistance of Edward 
Livingston, was to grapple with the French crisis. 

n 

On presenting his credentials, Livingston was warmly re- 
ceived by Louis Philippe, and assured that the necessary laws 
for the immediate execution of the treaty would be passed 
at the next meeting of the Chamber.^ The French Govern- 
ment then understood the certain effect on American public 
opinion of a contemptuous treatment of its obligations. 
The peculiar action of the Chamber had been the subject 
of a conversation between the Due de Broglie and James 
Buchanan, then in Paris, en route from his mission to St. 
Petersburg and this had been stressed. ^ Thanks to the clever 
Count Pozzo di Borgo, Russian Minister to France, Buchanan 
had been able to convey to Jackson an accurate idea of the 

* Livingston to McLane, Messages and Papers, iii, 130. 

* Buchanan's diary, Sept. 12, 1833, Buchanan's Works, ii, 388. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 391 

difficulties — the weakness of the King's Government and 
the hostility and cupidity of Dupin, the President of the 
Chamber.^ Nor did it take Livingston long to discover the 
secret of the apathy of the King and his Ministers. Louis's 
throne was a keg of dynamite, and he ruled in constant 
fear of the Deputies. He hoped to postpone an unpleasant 
duty until an auspicious moment. The treaty was described 
by the enemies of the dynasty as a bad bargain; the sup- 
porters of the old regime hated America because of the Rev- 
olution, and the Republicans hated the King because he was 
King. With Jackson manifesting more and more irritation, 
Livingston importuned the King, remonstrated with the 
Ministers, and labored with the members of the Chamber, 
and in all this he had the active cooperation of Lafayette. 
But after six months of conferences, the Chamber took ad- 
verse action. 

The Government was seriously concerned. The King ex- 
pressed his deep regret, and a French war vessel was sent to 
America with instructions to Serurier the French Minister, 
to assure Jackson that, as soon after the elections as the 
charter would permit, the Chamber would be summoned, the 
appropriation would be pressed, and the President informed 
of the result in time for him to communicate the facts to the 
Congress at the beginning of the session of December, 1834. 
This held Jackson's impatience in check. But the elections 
passed, the Chamber convened, nothing was done, and the 
next session would not convene until three weeks after the 
Congress would meet. 

As the congressional session approached, Livingston in- 
formed Forsyth that only a manifestation of strong national 
feeling in America would force action in Paris. "This is not 
a mere conjecture," he wrote. "I know the fact." And he re- 
iterated that the moderate tone of the President's Messages 
had convinced the French politicians that he would not be 

^ Buchanan's Works, ii, 290-91. 



392 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

supported in vigorous measures, and closed with the sig- 
nificant comment that "from all this you may imagine the 
anxiety I shall feel for the arrival of the President's Mes- 
sage. ^ 

The indignation of Jackson over this trifling, intensified by 
the conviction that France would not have dared thus in the 
case of a European Power, can be imagined. Many of his 
friends who lived in constant terror of his temper were be- 
side themselves at the prospect.- But he had put his hand 
to the plough, and it was unlike him to turn back. In the 
preparation of his Message a futile effort had been made to 
persuade him to the employment of less emphatic language, 
but the Cabinet members thought to change slightly the 
phrasing without his knowledge. Forsyth, who was a master 
in diplomatic wording, made slight changes in a paragraphs 
and the Message was sent to the "Globe" to be put in type. 
When the proof reached the White House, John C. Rives ' 
was with Jackson, and Donelson, a party to the plan to mod- 
erate, began to read as Jackson, with his pipe in his mouth, 
paced the floor. All went well until the altered paragraph 
was reached, and Donelson tried so to slur his reading that 
the change would not be noticed. Vain hope! Jackson 
stopped short. 

"Read that again, sir. '* 

This time the secretary read distinctly, and Jackson, the 
lion in him thoroughly aroused, thundered: 

"That, sir, is not my language; it has been changed, and 
I will have no other expression of my own meaning than 
my own words." 

And then and there he rewrote the paragraph, making it 
stronger than originally. Then, placing it in the hands of 
Rives, he forbade him to print anything else "at his peril." ^ 

^ Livingston to Forsyth, Messages and Papers, iii, 130. 
2 Ambler's Thomas Ritchie, 1G3. 

' Associated with Blair in the publication of the Globe, 
* Wise's Seven Decades of the Union, 145-46. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 393 

Reading the Message to-day it seems moderate enough in 
tone, without a trace of bluster, and, compared with Cleve- 
land's Venezuela Message, positively mild. The greater part 
is a calm, accurate, dispassionate recital of the facts, but it 
closed with the request for authority for making reprisals 
on French property should the next session of the Chamber 
fail to make the required appropriation. "Such a measure," 
he said, "ought not to be considered by France as a menace. 
Her pride and power are too well known to expect anything 
from her fears, and preclude the necessity of a declaration 
that nothing partaking of the character of intimidation is 
intended by us." 

The tone of the Message, appealing to the pride and self- 
respect of the people, was embarrassing to the Whigs, who 
for a time hesitated as to their course. To support Jackson 
might only tend to enhance his popularity, already too great 
to suit; to attack his course would certainly be disadvanta- 
geous to the country in an international controversy.^ Hone, 
the Whig diarist, however, was quite sure that the Message 
" will weaken our cause with the lookers on in other nations." ^ 
A month later he was still depressed because of Jackson's 
"unnecessary threats," but, being a praying Whig, he had 
hopes that Congress would still save the country.^ Justice 
Joseph Story was quite as mournful. "The President," he 
wrote, "is exceedingly warm for war with France if he could 
get Congress to back him. The Senate, in these days our sole 
security, it is well known, would steadily resist him." ^ 

Meanwhile, with the Whigs of the Senate laying their plans 
to repudiate the President's position in the face of a foreign 
adversary, events were moving in France. The Chambef 
met in the midst of excitement, the Ministry successfully 
putting their popularity to the test of a vote of confidence. 

^ Lewis to Hamilton, Hamilton's Reminiscences, 283. 
« Hone's Diary. Dec. 3, 1834. » Ibid., Jan. 1, 1835. 

* Letter to Judge May, Life and Letters of Story, ii, 192. 



394 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Livingston was encouraged.^ But a very little later his op- 
timism vanished, and he awaited hopefully the arrival of the 
Presidential Message. ^ Thus concerned over the tone of the 
Message, he arranged for couriers to hurry it to him on its 
arrival at Havre. It reached Paris in an American newspaper 
at two o'clock in the morning. The excitement was intense. 
Even Livingston was momentarily stunned. "The feeling," 
he wrote Forsyth, "is fostered by the language of our Op- 
position papers, particularly by the 'Intelligencer' and the 
'New York Courier,' extracts from which have been sent on 
by Americans, declaring them to be the sentiments of the 
majority of the people. These, as you will see, are translated 
and republished here, with such comments as they might 
have been expected and undoubtedly were intended to pro- 
duce, and if hostilities should take place between the two 
nations those persons may flatter themselves with having the 
credit of a large share in producing them." He felt, however, 
that "the energetic language of the Message" would "have 
a good effect." And contrary to the fear of Hone that it 
would degrade us in the eyes of the onlookers, he found that 
"it has certainly raised us in the estimation of other Powers 
if we may judge by the demeanor of their representatives 
here." He was sure that "as soon as the excitement subsides 
it will operate favorably on the counsels of France." Already 
"some of the papers have begun to change their tone." As 
soon as the Message was known, "the funds experienced a 
considerable fall, and insurance rose." ^ 

In compliance with the request of Comte de Rigny, the 
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Livingston personally delivered 
to him a copy of the Message, and stressed the point that, 
under our governmental form, the Message was a consulta- 
tion between departments of our Government, and was not 
directed to France. Then shifting to the offensive he added 

1 Livingston to Forsyth, Messages and Papers, in, 1 32. 
» Ibid. 2 Ibid., 135-36. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 395 

that it was most unfortunate, in view of Serurier's promise, 
that there had not been an earlier call of the Chamber. De 
Rigny seemed to attach the most serious importance to the 
intimation of bad faith, but the interview was friendly. That 
evening, at the Austrian Minister's, Livingston found him all 
suavity; and the next night a curt note from him announced 
the withdrawal of Serurier from Washington, and a readiness 
to give the American diplomat his passports on application ! ^ 
He made much of Jackson's comments on the failure to con- 
vene the Chamber when, as a matter of fact, the Chamber 
was then actually assembled in virtue of a royal ordinance. 
This, while true, could not have been known to Jackson in 
those days of slow communication. He only knew the orig- 
inal purpose. But it pleased de Rigny to assume an unex- 
plainable offense, and to announce that "His Majesty has 
considered it due his own dignity no longer to leave his Min- 
ister exposed to hear language so offensive to France." ^ Re- 
sisting an impulse to demand his passports, lest such action 
seem unnecessarily provocative, Livingston replied in a dig- 
nified note that unless de Rigny 's letter was intended as a dis- 
missal, he would await instructions from his own Government, 

ni 

Meanwhile the Whigs were planning to make political 
capital out of the crisis. The "Intelligencer," the organ of 
the Senate Whigs, had assumed an attitude which, as we have 
seen, had given much comfort to the French enemies of the 
treaty. "We trust," it said, "that it will be universally un- 
derstood, not only at home, but everywhere abroad, that the 
recommendation of the President is his own act only, and is 
not likely ... to receive the approbation of the Congress or 
the people of the United States." And Blair, in the "Globe," 
hotly replied that "if she [France] shall shed American blood 

^ Livingston to Forsyth, Messages and Papers, iii, 137-38. 
* De Rigny to Livingston, ibid., 138-39. 



396 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

in this controversy, and push her injustice to actual war, the 
responsibihty for all the destruction of human lives . . . will 
justly rest upon the heads of the editors of the 'National 
Intelligencer.'" ^ The "National Gazette," another Oppo- 
sition paper, compromised with the thought that Jackson 
"did well to present the subject to Congress . . . though we 
would earnestly dissuade Congress from giving him a dis- 
cretion so important as that of reprisals." Which, inter- 
preted by Blair, meant that the mercantile class and bankers 
were interested in French claims, and it would be well to 
enforce them, "but if the national rights and honor, im- 
plicated in a refusal to execute the treaty, should be vindi- 
cated by President Jackson, it would add renown to the man 
whom it was the editors' business to traduce." ^ 

The first act of the Whigs was to pack the Foreign Rela- 
tions Committee of the Senate with the President's enemies, 
three of the five. Clay, Mangum, and Sprague, being virulent 
foes. "There are certainly not three men in the French 
Chamber," wrote Blair, "more anxiously bent on thwarting 
the measures of General Jackson's Administration." ^ Into 
the hands of these was delivered that portion of the Message 
dealing with the French affair, and a month later Clay offered 
his resolution that "it is inexpedient at this time "to grant 
authority to the President to make reprisals. In presenting 
his report, Clay made the startling statement that if France 
was prudent "she will wait to see whether the Message should 
be seconded by the Congress." Thus, in the face of a pros- 
pective foreign foe, patently in the wrong, the leader of the 
Whigs attempted to create the impression that Jackson stood 
alone. This was the cue to the politicians. The Clay report 
was extravagantly praised. Poindexter, in ecstatic mood, 
moved that twenty thousand copies be printed for circulation 
— as propaganda to isolate the President. Calhoun favored 
"the largest number." The report had delighted him. "War 

» Washington Globe, Dec. 6. 1834. * Ibid. » Ibid.. Dec. 17. 1834. , 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 397 

was at all times to be avoided." ^ Only two Whigs objected to 
twenty thousand copies, and these on the ground that the 
printing of so many would require four months.^ Hill de- 
manded the yeas and nays, and by a party vote the " largest 
number" of Clay's campaign document was ordered. Thus, 
from the beginning, the divisions in the Senate on an inter- 
national crisis were along party lines. 

On the day Livingston received the curt note from de 
Rigny, Clay, in opening the discussion of his resolution, threw 
out the suggestion twice that France might make the appro- 
priation conditional on an "explanation" from the President 
of the United States. He felt sure that France would under- 
stand that Congress did not share the President's views. The 
Democratic members of the committee, in a minority report, 
differed from the majority in explaining the reason for finding 
it "inexpedient" to grant authority — the fact that the 
Chamber had been called a month earlier than anticipated. 
The only vigorous attack on the majority report, and the 
sole unapologetic American speech, was that of Buchanan, 
who, better than any other member of the Senate, under- 
stood the conditions in Paris. He called for an unqualified 
assertion of our determination to demand the observance of 
the treaty. "I hope I may be mistaken," he concluded, "but 
I believe it never will be paid before." ^ The brief debate, 
heard by the fashion of the capital packed in the galleries, 
was conducted with decorum, but quite discernible beneath 
the surface one may read the party feeling which even an in- 
ternational crisis could not obliterate. The Clay resolution 
was adopted. The "National InteHigencer," now finding its 
way regularly to Paris, expressed the hope that "with this 
unquestionable proof of the pacific temper of the Senate . . . 
it will now be understood at home and abroad that there is 
no morbid appetite for war among the grave and considerate 
portion of the American people." 

^ Cong. Globe, ii, 95. * Leigh and Preston. ^ » Cong. Globe, n, 125. 



398 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Several weeks were to intervene before the House took 
action. Meanwhile in Paris, Livingston, in seclusion, pre- 
pared his masterful and spirited formal reply to the impudent 
note of the French Minister. He loftily rebuked him for 
referring to the President as "General Jackson" in official 
language, firmly reiterated and proved the charge of broken 
faith in the matter of the Serurier pledge, and pitilessly ex- 
posed the hypocrisy of the complaint that Jackson had mis- 
represented, purposely, regarding the time of the calling of 
the Chamber. Had not de Rigny himself informed him that 
it was constitutionally impossible to call the session earlier 
when protest had been made as to the date? And yet it had 
been called. When a copy of this note reached Forsyth, 
he summoned Van Buren and the two repaired to the White 
House, where it was read and warmly approved.^ By this 
time Jackson was in no mood to compromise or conciliate. 
Forsyth instructed Livingston that, if the French Chamber 
again rejected the appropriation bill, a frigate was to be 
immediately sent to convey him home. Ten days after these 
instructions were written, Serurier was recalled, and Forsyth, 
in refusing an audience, coolly informed him that he was 
*' ready to receive in writing any communication the Minis- 
ter of France desires to have made to the Government of the 
United States." ^ 

Meanwhile the French papers reaching the United States 
were noisily militant. War-clouds lowered. James A. Ham- 
ilton tendered his services to Jackson for duty "civil or mil- 
itary, at home or abroad." ^ Major Lewis, gravely con- 
cerned because of his daughter's marriage to M. Pageot 
of the French Legation, hastened to reassure Hamilton with 
extracts from personal letters from governmental officials 
in Paris — and thus threw an interesting side-light on the 

* Hunt's Life of Livingston; Messages and Papers, iii, 202-08. 
^ Notes exchanged between Forsyth aud Serurier, Messages and Papers, iii, 
144-45. 

Hamilton's Reminiscences, 283. 






WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 399 

romance and tragedy of international marriages, for these 
letters had been translated, for the benefit of Jackson, in 
the French Legation by Madame Pageot, the wife of the 
First Secretary ! ^ 

IV 

Under these ominous conditions, with offers of military 
service pouring into the White House, with the French Min- 
ister on the ocean en route to Paris, and with additional let- 
ters in the diplomatic duel before it, the House of Represent- 
atives began its discussion of the crisis. With the majority 
report and resolutions declaring against further negotiations 
and in favor of contingent preparations, the House was imme- 
diately engaged in an animated and acrimonious discussion 
indicative of the excitement of the times. Edward Everett, 
the pacifist of the session, offered a substitute coupling a 
declaration of adherence to the treaty with a request for the 
renewal of negotiations. Adams, in ugly temper, threw out 
the hint that it appeared that "the supporters of the Admin- 
istration were the only ones to be heard upon the subject.'* 
With some feeling, Cambreleng, in charge for the Adminis- 
tration, assured the former President that he was ready to 
enter upon a free accommodation of differences that a united 
front might be presented to the Nation's adversary. This 
little storm cleared the atmosphere, and on the next day 
when the debate began in earnest it was wholesomely free 
from purely partisan rancor. Then it was that Adams ex- 
plained his dissent from the phrasing. He objected to the 
assertion that negotiations should be discontinued. "The 
lonly alternative compatible with the honor of nations is 
war," he said. If a continuance of the negotiations failed, he 
was ready for the "hazard of war." He realized that "the 
interest and honor of the Nation" were at stake. The pledge 
of France had been given, and the sole question was 

' Hamilton's Reminiscences, 284. 



400 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

" whether we shall suffer the nation that made this treaty to 
violate it." We could not aflPord to compromise to the extent 
of a penny. 

"What will be the consequences," demanded the fiery old 
man eloquent, "if you give it up.^^ Why, every nation will 
consider itself at liberty to sport with all treaties that are 
made with us." ; 

And then Adams startled the Democrats, and broke with 
the Whigs, in his reference to Jackson. "Whatever may be 
said of the imprudence of that recommendation," he ex- 
claimed, "the opinion of mankind will ever be that it was 
high-spirited and lofty, and such as became the individual 
from whom it emanated. I say it now, and I repeat, that it 
is the attitude which the Chief Magistrate will bear before 
the world, and before mankind, and before posterity." ^ 

Quite different the feeling of William S. Archer, a Virginia 
W^hig, who looked with fear and trembling to a contest with 
France. Think, he cried, of the commercial loss! Why sacri- 
fice this with so little involved? "It would be quixotic, and 
even romance scarcely presented a precedent, unless that of 
Sir Lucius O'Trigger." And even if right, why take the 
chance? He had been surprised that Adams had said noth- 
ing about fear. 

"No," shouted Adams, "the gentleman's whole argument 
is fear!" 

The Virginian closed by offering a resolution "that in the 
just expectation that the Government of France will have 
made provision . . . this House will forbear at the present 
time to adopt any measure in relation to that subject."* 

With flaming indignation, James W. Bouldin, a Virginia 
Democrat, replied to Archer's timorous speech. "The gentle- 
man asks if we would really go to war for five million dol- 
lars," he said. "Will a man fight if you spit in his face? " Al- 
ready the French Chamber was boasting that we had taken 

1 Cong. Globe, ii, 309-10. « Ibid., 310-11. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 401 

the like from others, and declaring that we were "a money- 
making, money-loving people, and would never spend a 
hundred million to obtain five." And, continued Bouldin, "I 
have heard as much praise of foreign nations as I want to 
hear. . . . All I want to hear at this time is whether we intend 
to hold upon the treaty or give it up entirely." ^ 

Cambreleng, aroused by the sordid character of the Archer 
appeal, sharply warned that "the honor and welfare of the 
Nation is involved, and the measure will no longer be sacri- 
ficed to gratify the spirit of party." ^ To which Tristam 
Burges, a Rhode Island Whig, responded with the amazing 
assertion that "France would be cowardly indeed if she 
should pay the money under such circumstances." ^ 

Edward Everett followed with a typical pacifist appeal for 
peace, but it was reserved for the eloquent Horace Binney 
to present the most novel reasons for America's consent to 
her humiliation. In the President's Message he had found 
"the President's design . . . impossible to fathom." ^ The 
action of the French Chamber was none of our business. In 
the meantime we should not close the door on negotiations. 
The French Republicans were using the treaty as a club 
upon the monarchy, and should this country "strengthen 
the hands of a constitutional monarchy ? " * 

Then Adams, in no conciliatory temper, rose again. 
"Whence come these compliments to France?" he asked. 
"Are they elicited by her virtues.^ Is it because she has re- 
fused the payment . . . due us? Is it because she has violated 
her plighted faith? Is it from the style of the dignified de- 
bates . . . where we are characterized as a nation of mercena- 
ries — where the basest and meanest of motives are attrib- 
uted to the American people — those of sordid avarice, 
speculation, and gain?. . . Is it on this that the gentleman 
from Virginia bases his *just expectations'?" And, turning 

1 Cong. Globe, ii, 312. « Ibid., 312-13. » Ibid., 313. 

* Binney's Diary; Ldfe of Binney, 126. J Cong. Globe, ii, 320. 



402 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

to Everett: "We have heard much of war and its horrors. 
No man can entertain a greater abhorrence of war than I. 
I would do anything but sacrifice honor and independence 
to avoid it. But when I hear it advanced that there is no 
such thing as national honor, that it is merely ideal, I must 
take leave to say that I do not subscribe to such a doctrine." ^ 

But the next speaker, Benjamin Hardin, though hailing 
from the fighting State of Kentucky, was not impressed. 
Randolph had compared his wit to "a coarse kitchen butcher 
knife whetted upon a brickbat," ^ but he now purred gently 
to the harsh strokes of the French Chamber. "What would 
we go to war for.^^" he demanded. "The paltry sum of five 
million dollars!" In one year war would "sweep from the 
ocean at least fifty millions of our commerce." And where 
would the expense fall? "Upon the hard-working and in- 
dustrious farmer." ^ 

The outcome was the adoption of a resolution which was a 
compromise between that of the committee and the ideas of 
Adams, insisting on the maintenance of the treaty and in fa- 
vor of preparations. This was adopted at a night session on 
the 2d of March, and the session was then thought to expire 
at midnight on March 3d. 

V 

An occurrence on the last day of the session, due to partisan 
madness, left the Republic all but naked to its prospective 
foe. Early in the evening, during the consideration of the 
Fortifications Bill, an amendment was ofiFered in the House, 
appropriating three millions to be used at the discretion of 
the President for emergency work in the event France should 
strike during the congressional recess. It met with no oppo- 
sition in the House, but the moment it reached the Senate it 

» Cong. Globe, ii, 322. 

2 General Linder's Early Bench and Bar of Illinois, 48. 

3 Cong. Globe, ii, 322. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 403 

was pounced upon by the Whig leaders as another proof of 
Jackson's itch for power. Webster, assuming the leadership 
in the sorry business, proposed instantly to dispose of the 
amendment with a motion to "adhere" to the Senate meas- 
ure. This harsh, unusual course was intended as a notice 
that the Senate would not even meet the House in conference 
upon the subject. 

Then followed a most amazing spectacle, with the Whigs 
assailing Jackson and his alleged contempt for the Consti- 
tution and determination to declare war without an Act of 
Congress. Senator Buchanan, protesting against the Web- 
ster motion, pointed out the necessity for the appropriation 
— the possibility of a blow from France during the recess, 
the frankly expressed apprehension of Livingston. "In that 
event," he continued, "what will be our condition? Our sea- 
coast from Georgia to Maine will be exposed to the incursions 
of the enemy; our cities may be plundered and burnt; the 
national character may be disgraced; and all this whilst we 
have an overflowing Treasury." ^ 

Ejng of Alabama earnestly pleaded with Webster to with- 
draw the harsh motion. "In what way," he asked, "does it 
violate the Constitution? Does it give the President the 
power to declare war? This power belongs to Congress 
alone, nor does the bill in the slightest degree impair it. 
Does it authorize the raising of armies? No, not one man 
may be enlisted beyond the number required to fill up the 
ranks of your little army." 

But Webster was deaf to the appeal. The "autocrat" and 
"tyrant " was again making an onslaught on the Constitution, 
and he would have none of it. And by a strict party vote, for 
White of Tennessee had by now definitely joined the Oppo- 
sition, the motion to adhere was adopted. 

When this surprising action reached the House, it swal- 
lowed its pride and asked for a conference. The conferees 

* Buchanan's Works, ii, 439-41. 



404 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

met and remained in deadlock until midnight. Forsyth and 
Van Buren were at the Capitol trying without avail to get 
action. Meanwhile in the Senate something very like a fili- 
buster was begun. Benton was impressed by the number of 
the speakers, their vehemence, perseverance, provocative 
attacks on Jackson, and indirectly on the House. ^ 

All this time, Jackson was patiently waiting in his room at 
the Capitol to sign the bill when passed. At midnight he put 
on his hat and returned to the White House. The conference 
and debate continued, with many, who considered the session 
dead at midnight,^ leaving the Capitol, until repeated calls 
of the House failed to secure a quorum. At a late hour some 
of the Whig members of the House were insisting that the 
amendment be abandoned, with the Democrats refusing to 
yield and placing the responsibility upon the Senate. Par- 
tisan bitterness became more pronounced as the end ap- 
proached. "There are men who would willingly see the 
banner of France waving over your Capitol, rather than lose 
an opportunity to make a thrust at the Administration," bit- 
terly exclaimed Jesse Bynum of North Carolina. "This is 
not a miserable Administration or anti-Administration ques- 
tion," protested Henry A. Wise, the Whig who favored the 
amendment. The danger of war was real and if it came 
"every fortification on your coast is liable to fall into the 
hands of a strong maritime power," he warned.^ At inter- 
vals, motions to recede were offered and overwhelmingly 
defeated. 

It was two o'clock in the morning when Cambreleng re- 
turned to the House with a compromise — $300,000 for arming 
the fortifications, $500,000 for repairs and the equipping of 
war vessels, "an amount wholly inadequate if it should be 
required, and more than necessary if it should not." As he 
entered the House, he found no quorum, and no possibility 

^ Thirty Years' View, i, 594. ^ The then prevalent belief. 

» Cong. Globe, n, 330. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 405 

of getting one. On a motion to adjourn, only 111 members 
were present and voting; a few moments later but 75; and at 
three o'clock, Speaker Bell rose, delivered a brief valedictory, 
and the House stood adjourned without day. The Nation 
was naked to the foe, and in the midst of negotiations. 

Far from weakening Jackson's determination to maintain 
the dignity and rights of the Nation, the failure of the Forti- 
fications Bill but strengthened his will, and two days after 
Congress adjourned, Forsyth instructed Livingston to de- 
mand an explanation or qualification of an insinuation in 
Serurier's note of withdrawal that the President had know- 
ingly misrepresented in his Message to Congress. ^ 

Meanwhile, in France, the Whigs' campaign to picture 
Jackson as isolated in his position from both Congress and 
the people was having its effect, and there were Whigs in 
America who rejoiced in the fact. Scanning the French news- 
papers, Philip Hone was delighted to find that Clay's report 
and the Senate resolution had had the effect he anticipated. 
He rejoiced to find that they convinced the French that the 
proposal of reprisals "are only the acts of the President " and 
"would not be sanctioned by the legislature of the Nation." ^ 

And Hone was not mistaken as to the effect of Jackson's 
firmness and the Senate's action. The money was appro- 
priated by the Chamber with the payment contingent on 
an apology or explanation from Jackson. In the discussion 
of the appropriation measure, Jackson was roundly de- 
nounced, and ridiculed as one repudiated by his own people. 
Boasts were made of the ease with which France could crush 
the United States. " The insult from President Jackson comes 
from himself alone," said M. Henri de Chabaulon. "This 
is more evident from the refusal of the American Congress 
to concur with him in it. . . . Suppose the United States had 

' Serurier to Forsyth, Messages and Papers, in, 211; Forsyth to Livingston, ibid., 
210. 

* Hone's Diary, March 14, 1835. 



406 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

taken part with General Jackson, we should have had to de- 
mand satisfaction, not from him, but from the United States; 
. . . and we should have had to . . . entrust to our heroes of 
Navarino and Algiers the task of teaching the Americans that 
France knows the way to Washington as well as England." 
And this insulting speech was received with applause. "When 
the Americans see this long sword," exclaimed M. Ranee, 
"believe me, gentlemen, they would sooner touch your money 
than dare to touch your sword." ^ Left to his own resources 
by the absence of instructions on the proviso of the measure 
of the Chamber, Livingston informed the Due de Broglie 
that an attempt to enforce the proviso would be repelled 
"by the undivided energy of the Nation." ^ And four days 
later he left Paris, with Barton, his son-in-law, at the Amer- 
ican Legation as Charge d'Affaires. 

From this time on to the crisis, the American Legation in 
Paris and the French in Washington were under Charges 
d'Affaires, and strangely enough the wives of both were 
prime favorites of Jackson and intimates of the White House 
circle. The beautiful and exquisite Cora Livingston, daugh- 
ter of the Minister, was long the reigning belle of the Ameri- 
can capital. Josiah Quincy had been infatuated with her, and 
the story has come down of Van Buren trying to get her un- 
der the mistletoe. In the White House she had come and gone 
with the informality of a member of the household, and many 
an evening she had spent with Mrs. Donelson in one of the 
private rooms of the President's house, with Jackson sitting 
at one side smoking his pipe. She had married Barton a 
short time before Livingston's departure for Paris, and it had 
pleased the man of iron, with so much of tender sentiment 
where women were concerned, to appoint the bridegroom 
Secretary of the Legation that Cora might be in Paris 
with her mother. Enclosing his commission in a letter to 

1 Quoted by Benton, Thirty Years' View, i, 692. 
^ Messages and Payers, iii, 178-79. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 407 

**My Dear Cora," he had asked her to "present it to him with 
your own hand." 

Quite as closely connected with the White House circle 
was Madame Pageot, known to Jackson as little Delia Lewis, 
daughter of one of the members of the Kitchen Cabinet, He 
had known her as a child in Tennessee where her father dwelt 
close to the Hermitage, and she had known and loved the 
sainted Rachel. When her engagement to Pageot was an- 
nounced, Jackson had insisted that the marriage should take 
place in the White House, and when her first child was born 
and called "Andrew Jackson," the christening had been in 
the President's house. It was on this occasion when the Min- 
ister, following the form, asked the infant, "Andrew Jackson, 
do you renounce the Devil and all his works?" that the Pres- 
ident with great fervor responded, "I do most indubitably," 
to the delight of all. 

Thus there was a touch to the closing days of the crisis 
that probably has no parallel in the history of diplomacy. 

VI 

Had the French politicians been able to witness the popular 
ovation accorded Livingston on his arrival in New York, they 
might have changed their opinion concerning Jackson's iso- 
lation from the people. An immense crowd greeted him at 
the wharf, followed him to his lodgings, clamored for a speech, 
and thronged the City Hall at the public reception. Philip 
Hone, one of the Whigs who rejoiced in the demand of a 
foreign nation for an apology from the American President, 
was gravely concerned because he had returned in "a bad 
humor," and might "infuse some of it into the mind of the 
obstinate and weak old man at the head of the Government, 
and so prevent an amicable arrangement." ^ But the Whig 
diarist's greatest disgust came with Livingston's ovation at 
the dinner of the Corporation on July 4th, when at the con- 

» Hone's Diary, June 23, 1835. 



408 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

elusion of his brief speech the room rang with cries of "No 
explanations ! " "No apology ! " — dividing, as Hone records, 
"the echoes of the spacious dome with equally inspiring 
shouts of 'Hurrah for Jackson!' " ^ At Philadelphia, en route 
to Washington, Livingston was the guest of honor at an 
equally enthusiastic dinner, and, thus acclaimed by his 
countrymen, he reached Washington and went into con- 
ference with Jackson, Forsyth, and Van Buren. 

Calm and determined, Jackson waited patiently until in 
September when he proposed to press the issue to a decision. 
Forsyth sent instructions to Barton. If nothing indicative of 
a purpose to pay the indemnity had been done, the Charge 
was to call upon the Due de Broglie and ask for a definite 
answer with the view to the regulation of his conduct. If the 
Minister should fix a day for the payment. Barton was to 
remain in Paris; otherwise he was to demand his passports 
because of the non-execution of the treaty. And this step was 
to be taken in time to permit the result to be communicated 
to Jackson before he prepared his Message for the opening of 
Congress. In the latter part of October, Barton had his 
audience with de Broglie, and handled himself with consum- 
mate tact and caution. With studied impudence the French 
Minister announced that the money would be forthcoming 
when an explanation or apology had been received, and a 
few days later, Barton sailed for the United States. 

Meanwhile the Congress convened, and Jackson in his 
Message reported progress, soberly reviewing the course of 
the negotiations up to the passage of the indemnity bill by 
the French Chamber with its offensive proviso, and bluntly 
concluding that the French Government has "received all 
the explanation which honor and principle permitted." He 
informed Congress of his final instructions to Barton and 
of his purpose to communicate the result when ascertained. 

It was while awaiting the report of the American Charge 

I Hone's Diary, July 4, 1835. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 409 

d 'Affaires that M. Pageot received notice of his recall, and 
by the time he was able to sail the two nations were on the 
verge of war. Hone, noting the departure of the Poland 
bearing M. Pageot and "the odds and ends of the French 
Legation, " could not restrain his mirth over the prospective 
discomfiture of the French Charge in bearing back to the 
French Court a young heir, bearing "the august name of 
Andrew Jackson. " ^ 

When Barton reached New York, he hastened with all 
speed to Washington, where Livingston awaited him. It 
was with no little anxiety that Van Buren, Forsyth, and 
Livingston accompanied him to the White House. The 
three older men, all devoted to Jackson, and all at some 
time at the head of his Department of Foreign Affairs, were 
greatly concerned over the possible effect of the report on 
the thoroughly aroused President. 

Observing their solemnity. Barton turned upon them: 

"Well, gentlemen, shall it be oil or water.''" 

"Oh, water, by all means," they answered in a chorus. 

To none of these, not even to Livingston, had Barton indi- 
cated the nature of the report he had to make. Pressing the 
former Minister's hand as a token of appreciation of his con- 
fidence. Barton led the way into the iron man's presence. 

The moment the conference was over, Jackson began the 
preparation of his Message to Congress, and, on its comple- 
tion, submitted it to Livingston. In view of Hone's fear, it 
is interesting to note that it was the former Minister of State 
who persuaded Jackson to a moderation of its tone. Drawing 
a substitute, he sent it to the White House with an ingra- 
tiating letter. 

"The characteristics of the present communication," he 
wrote, "ought, in my opinion, to be moderation and firmness. 
Our cause is so good that we need not be violent. Modera- 
tion in language, firmness in purpose, will unite all hearts 

» Hone's Diary, Jan. 26. 1836. 



410 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

at home, all opinion abroad, in our favor. Warmth and re- 
crimination will give arguments to false friends and real 
enemies, which they may use with effect against us. On 
these principles I have framed a hasty draft which I enclose. 
You will, with your usual discernment, determine whether it 
suits the present emergency. At any rate, I know you will 
do justice to the motive that has induced me to offer it." ^ 

Jackson took the advice in good part, destroyed his decla- 
ration of war, and prepared, with the assistance of Forsyth, 
another, which was submitted to Congress on January 15th. 
It was an excited body of men that listened that winter day 
to the reading of the Message that might mean war. But 
three days before, an acrimonious debate had been precipi- 
tated by Benton, charging the partisanship of the Senate 
with responsibility for the failure of the Fortifications Bill; 
and only the day before, Webster, in a spirited reply, had 
attempted to shift responsibility to the Democratic House. 
John Quincy Adams, enraged at Webster's reflections upon 
the House, was meditating his sensational reply. In this 
atmosphere the Message was read. 

After reviewing the controversy up to the hour of the Mes- 
sage, with the declaration that "the spirit of the American 
people, the dignity of the Legislature, and the firm resolve 
of their Executive Government forbid" an apology or ex- 
planation, he called upon Congress to "sustain Executive 
exertion in such measures as the case requires." This 
included, according to his idea, reprisals, the exclusion of 
French products and French vessels from American ports. 
But there was more to be done. Naval preparations of the 
French intended for our seas had been announced. He knew 
not the purpose. But, "come what may, the explanation 
which France demands can never be accorded, and no arma- 
ment, however powerful and imposing, at a distance or on 
our coast, will, I trust, deter us from discharging the high 

' Hunt's Life of Livingston. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 411 

duties we owe to our constituents, our national character, 
and to the world"; and he called upon the Congress "to 
vindicate the faith of treaties and to promote the general 
interest of peace, civilization, and improvement." ^ 

vn 

Notwithstanding the seriousness of the crisis the memory 
of the failure of the Fortifications Bill in the last session 
would not down. Throughout the spring, summer, and au- 
tumn of 1835, the press and politicians were engaged in bitter 
criminations and recriminations as to the responsibility. It 
was manifestly the fault of the Senate Whigs, but their har- 
assed leaders bitterly retaliated on the Democratic House, 
and drew upon their imagination in an effort to place re- 
sponsibility upon the Jacksonian leaders. A fantastical 
article, once attributed to Daniel Webster, appeared in the 
"National Gazette," charging that Van Buren and John 
Forsyth had expressed the wish to Cambreleng, the Demo- 
cratic leader in the House, that the bill should fail, that the 
calamity might be ascribed to the Whigs of the Senate. The 
people had been thoroughly outraged at the base prostitu- 
tion of the Nation's interest to the pettiness of party politics. 
During the summer, Blair called attention in the "Globe" 
to Serurier's action in sending to Paris with Jackson's Mes- 
sage the criticism of the "National Intelligencer," with the 
comment that the French Minister for Foreign Affairs 
would do well to read the two together! Paris was assured 
by Serurier that the Whig paper had "pretty considerable 
influence," had "under the presidencies of Madison and 
Monroe been the official paper," and "has spoken energetic- 
ally against the measure" the President had proposed. The 
President's sharp reference to the unfortunate situation cre- 
ated by the failure of the bill, in his Message of December, 

^ The naval activities in France are set forth by Benton, in Thirty Years' View, 
I, 592-93. 



412 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

1835, had shown a determination, on the part of that con- 
summate poh'tician, to turn the popular indignation upon 
the Opposition. However, with the passion of the parties 
smouldering beneath the surface, there was no open fight 
until, on January 12th, the pugnacious Benton, speaking on 
the national defense, reviewed the failure of the Fortifica- 
tions Bill, and laid the responsibility at the Senate's door. 
He closed his biting comments with an effective reference to 
the approach of the French squadron, sent on the supposi- 
tion of our helplessness, and the suggestion that the Senate 
should then act "under the guns of France and under the 
eyes of Europe." ^ 

That was the call to battle. The irate Webster sprang to 
his feet to announce that a little later he would be able to 
exonerate the Senate, and the fiery Leigh of Virginia pro- 
tested that "the objection to the appropriation was not be- 
cause of any distrust of the President," but because of the 
unconstitutionality of the amendment: this in delicious dis- 
regard of the plain record of the debate. But Preston, who 
followed, exposed the cloven hoof of the partisan animus. 
If the French fleet was coming, why had the President kept 
Congress in the dark.^^ Why had he withdrawn our repre- 
sentatives from Paris? Why had we no representative at the 
Court of England. f^ — an audacious question in view of the 
refusal by the Whig Senate to confirm either of two excellent 
appointments to that post. Why assume that the French 
fleet came with hostile motives.'' "It may be that this fleet 
is coming to protect the commerce of France," he thought. 
From this it was an easy step to the reiteration of the Whig 
apologies for and defense of the action of the French Govern- 
ment.^ 

But the last word in defense of the Senate was reserved for 
Webster, who rose twenty-four hours before the Special Mes- 
sage reached the Senate and while it was being prepared. It 

1 Cong. Globe, ii, 91-92. » Ibid., 92. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 413 

was a laboriously wrought attempt. The amendment to the 
Fortifications Bill had been offered at the eleventh hour. The 
President had not requested the additional appropriation in 
a Message. No department had recommended it. Nothing 
of which Congress was cognizant had occurred to justify it. 
The Senate had passed a resolution "reminding" the House 
of the bill in the closing hours. The conference report had 
not been passed upon by the House. And "the bill therefore 
was lost. It was lost in the House of Representatives. It 
died there, and there its remains are to be found." Had not 
the President announced at one o'clock that he would receive 
no further communications from the Congress? What right 
had he to interfere with the time Congress should fix for ad- 
journment? ^ And what constitutional right had Congress 
to make an appropriation when there was no specification of 
the precise use to be made of the money? And with true 
Websterian eloquence he closed with mournful meditations 
on the encroachments of Jackson upon the Constitution, and 
the prediction that, unless checked, men, then living, would 
** write the history of this government, from its commence- 
ment to its close." 2 

That the Jacksonians were not impressed with the danger 
was shown in the brief reply of Cuthbert of Georgia, that the 
great danger to Rome was not in the kingly name they feared, 
but "in the patrician class, a moneyed aristocracy, a com- 
bination of their political leaders, seeking to establish an 
aristocratical government, regardless of the welfare of the 
people." But the answer to Webster was not to come from 
a Democrat, but from a Whig — and that, too, a Whig from 
Massachusetts, who had been defeated for reelection to the 
Presidency by Andrew Jackson! 

^ At that time it was generally believed that a Congress died at midnight on the 
3d of March rather than at noon on the 4th, as now assumed. 
2 Webster's Works, iv, 205-29. 



414 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

vm 

There had long been an undercurrent of hostility between 
Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams. Webster had gladly 
left the House during the Adams Administration to escape 
the necessity of defending the President; and the comments 
on the great orator, running through the famous "Diary" of 
Adams, are often sarcastic, usually unfriendly, and seldom 
fulsome. That this spirit of animus alone should have im- 
pelled Adams to make his notable reply — a reply which 
has been strangely ignored by historians — cannot be rec- 
onciled with his character as a public man. The fact that 
Webster had assailed the House of which Adams was a lead- 
ing member, and the amendment with which Adams had 
had something to do, may explain the bitterness of his retort. 
But no one can read the speeches of Adams on the French 
controversy without being impressed with the robust Ameri- 
canism of the man, and his utter impatience with a partisan 
thought in the presence of a foreign adversary. 

The opportunity for Adams's reply came one week after 
the Webster speech, six days after the President's Special 
Message, and when the international crisis seemed most men- 
acing. The "National Intelligencer" had made an attack 
upon the House of Representatives, along the line of the 
Webster speech, and Cambreleng, who had been personally 
assailed, in resenting the article had said that "more than 
one member of the House, not only on this side, but on both 
sides, will vindicate the proceedings of the House in relation 
to the bill." Immediately afterwards Adams presented his 
resolution for an investigation, and launched into one of the 
most bitter, dramatic, and sensational speeches ever heard 
in the American Congress. He rose in fighting armor. 
Scarcely had he begun his attack upon the Senate when he 
was called to order for mentioning that body; whereupon 
he jauntily observed that he would "transfer the location of 

I 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 415 

the place where these things had happened from the Senate 
to the office of the ' National IntelHgencer' " — and thus pro- 
ceeded to the castigation of that journal. In explaining the 
reasons for the three-million-dollar amendment, he recounted 
the story of the resolution adopted in the House. 

"In all the debates in the 'National Intelligencer,'" he 
said, "there is no more trace of such a resolution having 
passed the House than if it had never existed; no more trace 
than can be found on the journal of the Senate of what they 
would do for the defense of the country, or to insist on the 
execution of the treaty of July. But in the debate in the 'Na- 
tional Intelligencer,' I find a prodigious display of eloquence 
against the constitutionality of the section appropriating 
$3,000,000 for the defense of the country, because it had not 
been recommended by the Executive." 

The House was instantly in an uproar, and Adams was 
again called to order for his reference to the Senate. The old 
man stood listening calmly to the excited observations of 
some of his colleagues, and was finally permitted to proceed. 

"Observe, sir," he continued, "the terms, the object, and 
the conditions of that appropriation. It was to be expended, 
in whole or in part, under the direction of the President of the 
United States — the executive head of the Nation, sworn to 
the faithful execution of the laws; sworn especially, and en- 
trusted with the superintendence of all the defenses of the 
country against the ravages of a foreign invader; it was to be 
expended for the military and naval service, including forti- 
fications and ordnance and increase of the navy. These, sir, 
the natural and appropriate instruments of defense against 
a foreign foe, were the sole and exclusive objects of the appro- 
priation. Not one dollar of it could have been applied by him 
to any other purposes without making himself liable to im- 
peachment; not by that House of Representatives, but by 
us, their successors, fresh from the constituent body, the 
people; yet before the same Senate for his judges, a majority 



416 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

of whom were surely not of his friends; not one dollar of it 
could have been expended without giving a public account 
of it to the representatives of the people and to the Nation. 
Nor was this all. Thus confined to specific objects, it was to 
be expended, not unconditionally, but only in the event that 
it should be rendered necessary for the defense of the country 
prior to the then next session of Congress — an interval of 
nine months — during which no other provision could have 
been made to defend your soil from sudden invasion, or to 
protect your commerce floating upon every sea from a sweep 
of a royal ordinance of France. 

"And this is the appropriation, following close upon that 
unanimous vote of 217 members of the House, that the exe- 
cution of the Treaty of 1831 should be maintained and in- 
sisted upon. This is the appropriation so tainted with man- 
worship, so corrupt, so unconstitutional, that the indignant 
and patriotic eloquence of the 'National Intelligencer' would 
sooner see a foreign foe battering down the walls of the 
Capitol than agree to it." 

If this reference to the declaration of Webster caused the 
members of the House to catch their breath, the next sen- 
tence brought the Democrats to their feet with prolonged 
cheers and shouts. 

"Sir," Adams continued, "for a man uttering such sen- 
timents there would be but one step more, a natural and an 
easy one to take, and that would be, with the enemy at the 
walls of the Capitol, to join him in battering them down." 

With the Wliigs dazed, and the Democrats shouting their 
approval, James K. Polk, in the chair, was forced to hammer 
vigorously with his gavel before he could restore any sem- 
blance of order — and the old man lunged again at Webster's 
argument. 

"Are we to be told," he asked, "that this and the other 
House must not appropriate money unless by recommenda- 
tion from the Executive.'^ Why, sir, the Executive has told 



I 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 417 

us now that that appropriation was perfectly in accord with 
his wishes. Yet here the charge is, inverted, and unconsti- 
tutional conspiracy and man-worship are imputed to this 
House on account of that appropriation because it was ap- 
proved and desired by the Executive. Where was the possi- 
bility of a recommendation from the Executive; of state- 
ments from the departments; of messages between this and 
the other House, when the resolution of the House had been 
passed but the day before.'^. . ." 

And man- worship? Here Adams refused to follow his 
fellow Wliigs in withholding commendation from the patri- 
otism of the President. 

"I will appeal to the House to say whether I am a wor- 
shiper of the Executive. . . . Neither the measure of issuing 
letters of marque and reprisal, nor the measures of commer- 
cial interdict or restriction — neither had that House ap- 
proved; but the House, and, thank God, the people of the 
country, have done homage to the spirit which had urged to 
the recommendation, even of those measures which they did 
not approve. Why must the House be charged with man- 
worship and unconstitutional conspiracy, because they 
passed an appropriation of three millions for the defense of 
the country, at a time when imminent danger of war was 
urged, as resulting from that very resolution, which, but the 
night before, passed by a unanimous vote.'^ Because, forsooth, 
that appropriation had not been asked for by the Executive; 
and yet because it was approved by the Executive." 

In reviewing the action of both Senate and House on the 
President's recommendation, Adams scornfully and con- 
temptuously dismissed the Clay resolution in a few words: 
"A resolution not only declining to do that which the Presi- 
dent had recommended to vindicate the rights and honor of 
the Nation, but positively determining to do nothing — not 
even to express a sense of the wrongs which the country was 
enduring from France." 



418 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

"And now, sir," he continued, "where is all this scaffold- 
ing of indignation and horror at the appropriation for specific 
purposes, for the defense of the country, because, forsooth, 
it had not been recommended by the Special Message of the 
Executive? Gone, sir, gone! You shall look for it and you 
shall not find it. You shall find no more trace of it than, in 
the tales of the 'National Intelligencer,' you shall find of 
that vote of 217 yeas — which was the real voucher for the 
purity and patriotism of that appropriation of $3,000,000 — 
denounced to the world by the eloquent orators of the sena- 
torial press as so profligate and corrupt, that an enemy at the 
gates of this Capitol could not have justified a vote in its 
favor to arrest his arm, and stay his hand in battering down 
these walls. You shall find no more trace of it upon the jour- 
nals of the Senate than you shall find of sensibility to the 
wrongs which our country was enduring from France." 

The old man eloquent thence passed to the complaint that 
the Senate was ignorant of the reasons impelling the House 
to the adoption of the amendment, and tore it to shreds; and 
then on to the responsibility for the failure of the bill. This, 
he contended, was due to the very spirit of the Senate — - 
its temper an insult to the President and the House, The 
Webster motion to adhere, he said, was always considered 
a "challenge," and had never before been made at such an 
early stage of a difference between^ the Houses. "It was a 
special disposition," he said, "to cast odium on the House, 
a special bravado that induced the Senate thus to draw the 
sword, and throw away the scabbard — and they adhered." 

Turning then to the willingness of the Senate, when it was 
too late, to accept an amendment for $800,000 instead of 
$3,000,000, he continued: 

"Thus, sir, this horrible conspiracy against the Consti- 
tution melted down to a mere question of dollars and cents." 
And when this agreement was reached by the Senate, the 
House was dead — the hour of midnight having passed. He 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 419 

did not himself believe that a Congress died at midnight, but 
others did, and they were conscientious. And the Senate, 
knowing of that situation, had the insolence to adopt its 
resolution of reminder and send it to the House. "But to 
complete the true character of that message we must inquire 
at what time it was sent. It was sent at two o'clock in the 
morning; it was sent at a time when it was known, both in 
the House and the Senate, that no quorum was to be found. 
When that message was delivered, I must confess, if ever a 
feeling of shame and indignation had filled my bosom, it was 
at that moment. I felt it was an insult to the immediate rep- 
resentatives of the people; and if it had been sent at a mo- 
ment when the House existed, with the power to resent un- 
provoked insult, I verily believe, that, imitating the example 
of our Congress in a somewhat similar case during the Revo- 
lutionary War, I should have moved that a message be sent 
by two members of the House to cast the Senate message on 
their floor, and tell them it was not the custom of the House 
to receive insolent messages." ^ 

Thus did Adams the Whig stand forth as the special 
champion of the President and the Democratic House, and 
tear the Webster sophistry to tatters; thus did he serve no- 
tice that, outside the more selfish politicians of the Whig Op- 
position, the Nation applauded the spirit of Jackson and was 
prepared to follow him against any foreign foe. The speech 
was the sensation of the day, and Adams was never forgiven. 
Henry A. Wise, the brilliant Virginia Whig, followed in a re- 
markable medley of gossipy charges against his colleagues, but 
his effort was so novel in its irregularities that it destroyed 
itself — and the fight over the loss of the Fortifications Bill 
is told in the speeches of Webster and Adams. The Whigs 
pursued the latter with their resentment to the polls in the 
autumn of that year, and he was able to record, after the 

* Cong. Globe, u, 130-32. Reference is also made to the debate in Sargent's Pub- 
lie Men and Events, i, 309. 



420 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

election, that he was "reelected to the next Congress with- 
out formal opposition, but almost without Whig votes." 
And looking back at the end of the year, and recording his 
impressions, he referred to his reply to Webster with evident 
relish. "It demolished the speech of Webster," he wrote, 
" drove him from the field, and whipped him and his party 
into the rank and file of the Nation in the quarrel with the 
French Ejng." ^ It did something more; it disclosed the fact 
that the Whig leaders, in their hate of Jackson, approached 
perilously near disloyalty to their country. If Jackson won 
his fight, it was after battling against, not only the Govern- 
ment of France, but against the party Opposition at home. 
And fighting this double battle, he won. 

IX 

Adams spoke on January 21, 1836, while Congress was 
considering the recommendations of the Special Message. 
Alphonse Pageot, and his wife and son, Andrew Jackson, 
were in New York awaiting passage back to France; and two 
days after the French Charge left New York, Charles Bank- 
head, the British Charge d'Affaires at Washington, acting on 
instructions from his Government, offered the mediation of 
England in the settlement of the Franco-American dispute, 
in a letter to Forsyth. Jackson and his Secretary of State 
took six days to deliberate on the proposal before giving a 
formal answer. The note, signed, and no doubt prepared by 
Forsyth, is a strong and polished review of the controversy, 
a reiteration of Livingston's contention that no nation has 
the right to attempt an interference with the "consultation" 
of the departments of the American Government, and an 
explicit reservation that the American Government would 
not make the explanation or apology prescribed by the 
Government of France. There is no single sign of weaken- 
ing, absolutely nothing new in the way of a concession, and 

» Adams's Memoirs, Dec. 29, 1836. 



WHIG DISLOYALTY IN FRENCH CRISIS 421 

only a repetition of the Livingston notes to the Due de 
Broglie. 
^ Twelve days later, Bankhead informed Forsyth of the 
■ success of the mediation. "The French Government," he 
wrote, "has stated . . . that the frank and honorable manner 
in which the President has, in his recent Message, expressed 
himself in regard to the points of difference between the 
Governments of France and the United States, has removed 
those diflSculties, upon the score of national honor, which 
have hitherto stood in the way of the prompt execution by 
France of the treaty." ^ This was a complete reversal. The 
President had "expressed himself on the points of difference" 
through Livingston, in conversation, and through notes to 
both de Rigny and de Broglie, and he had expressed himself 
to them precisely as in "his recent Message." And it was 
after he had thus expressed himself that France had in- 
sisted that an explanation or apology prescribed by her 
should be made as a condition to the execution of the treaty. 
Jackson added nothing; France accepted what she had scorn- 
fully refused before, and the triumph of Jackson was com- 
plete. On May 10th Jackson was able to inform Congress 
that France had paid the four installments due. Thus, after 
the failures of the Administrations of Jefferson, Madison, 
Monroe, and Adams to get a settlement with France, Jack- 
son had negotiated a treaty within two years of his first 
inauguration, and had enforced the observance of the treaty 
almost a year before the expiration of his last term. 

The theory of some historians that Jackson, in his dealings 
with foreign nations, was lacking in finesse and success, is 
manifestly colored by blind prejudice. The prestige of the 
'1 Nation abroad was never so high as after his stern insistence 
that a treaty with the United States could no more be disre- 
garded than one with any of the European Powers. John 
Fiske touched the real significance of the result of the con- 

1 Messages and Papers, in, 221-22. 



422 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

troversy when he wrote that "the days when foreign powers 
could safely insult us were evidently gone by." ^ And the 
same historian discloses the necessity for the position as- 
sumed by Jackson. "In foreign affairs," he writes, "Jack- 
son's Administration won great credit through its enforce- 
ment of the French spoliation claims. European nations 
which had claims for damages against France on account of 
spoliations committed by French cruisers during the Napo- 
leonic wars, had no difficulty after the Peace of 1815 in ob- 
taining payment; but the claims of the United States had 
been superciliously neglected." ^ And so pronounced a par- 
tisan as John W. Foster, Secretary of State under the second 
Harrison, has recorded the deliberate judgment that "in its 
foreign relations his Administration maintained a dignified 
and creditable attitude." ^ 

The Whig leaders in the Senate and the press, the Clays 
and Websters and the Gales, had permitted their bitterness 
against Jackson to lead them to the verge of disloyalty to 
country, and the indignant protest of Adams was a true re- 
flection of the popular opinion. The clever politicians of the 
Kitchen Cabinet were not slow to see the opportunity again 
to picture Jackson as the patriotic hero, for the second time 
leading his people in a fight against a foreign adversary. 

1 Fiske's Historical Essays, i, 308. ^ Ibid., 307. 

' Foster's A Century of American Diplomacy, 273. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 

I 

From the adjournment of Congress in March, 1835, until it 
convened in December, the political leaders concerned them- 
selves with presidential politics, and the struggle for position 
was desperate and unscrupulous. From the hour in the first 
year of his first Administration, when Jackson, fearful of an 
early death, wrote his celebrated letter to Judge Overton ex- 
pressing a preference for Van Buren, the latter had been looked 
upon as the crown prince. From that hour the master political 
manipulators surrounding Jackson made no move not in- 
tended to advance the "magician" toward the goal of his 
ambition. In the summer of 1833 Major Lewis was disturbed 
over the prospective candidacy of Justice McLean,^ but it 
failed to materialize, and, within a year after the Major's 
trepidation, the White House circle realized that the most 
serious challenge to the plans for the succession would come 
from Hugh Lawson "VMiite of Tennessee, considered a rene- 
gade from the Jackson camp. The close attachment of the 
President and the Senator from his State had perceptibly 
cooled in less than a year after the inauguration. The latter 
was of a proud and sensitive temperament, and the growing 
intimacy of his old friend with the new school of practical 
politicians was enough to estrange him. Had he hoped in the 
beginning to become the legatee of Jackson, we should have 
a plausible explanation of his bitter resentment of the Pres- 
ident's failure to observe his one-term pledge. We only know 
that he drifted, first into the position of an independent 
supporter of the Administration, and later into one of frank 

* Lewis to Hamilton, Hamilton's Reminiscences, 259. 



424 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

hostility. His imagination began early to play pranks with 
his judgment. He began to seek evidence of slights. In all 
the new school of Jacksonian leaders he saw enemies. He 
carefully scrutinized the "Globe" for discriminations against 
him. That there was no conscious effort on the part of the 
paper to ignore him is shown in the action of Blair, on learn- 
ing that the Senator was offended. In a cordial letter he 
assured the suspicious Senator that he felt "the most perfect 
consciousness" that he had "done nothing to offend — ■ 
certainly not intentionally," and begged him to "frankly 
state the offense that it may be righted." The curt, ungra- 
cious reply of White was overlooked and an appeal made for 
a personal interview, but the response was so repellent that 
further attempts at a reconciliation were abandoned. There 
is some justification for the conclusion that White had early 
determined upon a quarrel with the view to placing himself 
at the head of the opposition wing of the Democratic Party. 
In 1833 the Opposition began to claim him as its own when 
he supported Calhoun's bill on Executive patronage in a 
powerful speech, and joined Clay in opposing the Administra- 
tion plan in the Nullification fight. 

It is not surprising that under these conditions the small 
faction of the Democratic Party should have turned to him 
as the logical man to pit against the pretensions of Van Buren. 
The former was a Southerner, the latter a Northerner, and 
the slavery controversy had become acute. The fact that 
White was a Tennesseean was expected to embarrass and 
handicap Jackson in his support of the New Yorker. To the 
Whigs he not only presented the best prospect for a schism 
in the party in power, but for a time the leaders actually 
considered the wisdom of making him their own candidate. 
Clay was fearful that his candidacy would fail to infuse 
among the Whigs "the spirit and zeal necessary to insure 
success," but thought he might, as an independent can- 
didate, "obtain the undivided support of the South and 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 425 

South-West," and thus throw the contest into the House 
and defeat Van Buren.^ Thus all the elements were present 
to make his disaffection probable. Hurt by what he con- 
ceived to be Jackson's ingratitude, jealous of the new friends 
that haunted the White House, importuned by the anti- 
Administration Democrats, and cleverly encouraged by the 
Whigs, he was gradually pushed into the attitude of a candi- 
date. To all of these, the gossips of the day, malignant as 
always, added a new reason, which they insisted was the 
predominant one — the ambition of his wife.^ 

Just before he decided upon the plunge, the Whigs had 
been assiduous in their cultivation of him, and ardent in 
their expressions of sympathy because of the harsh treatment 
accorded him by his old friend in the White House. One of 
the most persistent of the tempters was Clay's intimate and 
reflector, R. P. Letcher, Representative from Kentucky, who 
had maintained the most constant social relations with the 
Whites during the preceding winter, ingratiating himself 
into the old man's confidence, and frequently enjoying the 
hospitality of his home. The hollow mockery of Letcher's 
attachment appeared in a letter to a friend, written a little 
later, in which he galloped over the gossip of the capital, and 
announced that "Judge White is on the track running gaily, 
and won't come off; and if he would, his wife would n't let 
him." ^ A more suspicious man than the Tennessee Senator 
might have found, in this, evidence of treachery and duplic- 
ity. The slur on Mrs. White was resented by Blair, in a 
stinging editorial in the "Globe," but his excoriation of 
Letcher does not appear to have given White a more favor- 
able impression of the editor."* The intimation regarding 
Mrs. White was basely false, the slur wholly unjustified. 

By the spring of 1834, White had announced his candidacy 

1 Clay's Works, v, 393-94. "^ Benton's Thirhj Years' View. 

* This letter was published in the Frankfort Argiis and copied by Blair into the 
Washington Globe, Nov. 28, 1835. 

* Washington Globe, Nov. 30, 1835. 



426 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

and the gage of battle was thus thrown down to Jackson 
in Tennessee, which became the battle-ground. In the au- 
tumn of that year, while on a visit to the Hermitage, Jack- 
son, on learning of the partiality of many for the Senator, 
had entered into a warm defense of his favorite, ridiculed 
the prospects of White outside his own State, and, in more 
conciliatory mood, proposed the nomination of the Tennes- 
seean for Vice-President with a view to the succession on the 
expiration of Van Buren's term. Learning of these inter- 
views. White wrote to James K. Polk, knowing his intimacy 
with the President, iriquiring as to his information on the 
presidential position, but the only satisfaction he received 
was a warning to give no credence to any such gossip unless 
from an unquestionable source.^ But if Polk was not then 
familiar with Jackson's uncompromising hostility to White's 
aspirations, he was not to remain long in doubt. It was the 
plan of the Jackson organization in Tennessee, led by Polk 
and Felix Grundy, to simulate sympathy with the Senator's 
ambition, and persuasively lead him into the shambles of the 
Baltimore Convention. But when he refused to go passively 
to the slaughter, and a meeting of the Tennessee congressional 
delegation was called in the interest of his candidacy, Polk 
and Grundy refused to attend, threw off the mask, and de- 
clared open war. Thus the fight was extended into the con- 
gressional elections in Tennessee in the summer of 1835, 
with Polk assuming the leadership of the Administration 
forces, taking the stump in opposition to White's candidacy, 
and throwing the weight of his Nashville paper into the scale. 
Henceforth Polk's attitude was courageous. He would be 
glad to see a son of Tennessee elevated to the Presidency if 
it could be done in regulation manner by the Democratic 
Party, but he would not countenance any attempt to divide 
the party in the interest of the Whigs. The National Democ- 
racy favored Van Buren, and it was the duty of Tennessee 
not to separate from the party in the Nation. 

1 Polk to White, Memoir of Hugh Lawson White, 254. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 427 

The elections resulted in the triumph of White's followers, 
with casualties among Jackson's congressional followers, but 
Polk was triumphantly reelected, and he redoubled his ef- 
forts. At a series of banquets he denounced the attempt of 
Democrats to create a schism in the face of the common 
enemy. But immediately afterwards the Legislature, through 
the adoption of resolutions, formally nominated White for 
the Presidency. 

n 

Although the fame of Hugh Lawson White has been ob- 
scured by the years, he was familiarly known to his genera- 
tion as "the Cato of the Senate." Without sparkle or mag- 
netism, the purity of his character, the soundness of his 
common sense, his fidelity to duty, and assiduous applica- 
tion commanded respect if not admiration. His senatorial 
speeches were noteworthy because of their temperate tone — 
rare in his generation. Clarity and strength characterized 
his every utterance. If his speeches lacked eloquence, they 
smacked of statesmanship and substance. No member of 
the Senate more impressively looked the part. Tall, slender, 
and well-proportioned, with a broad forehead and deep-set, 
serious, penetrating blue eyes, he was the embodiment of 
senatorial dignity. With long gray hair, brushed back from 
his forehead, and curling at some length on his shoulders, he 
appeared the patriarch. In repose, he was sad and stern. 
Because of the rarity and thoroughness of his speeches, he 
commanded the respect and confidence of his colleagues. 
He looked upon his duties with the solemnity of the Roman 
Senator of the noblest period of the Roman Republic. Al- 
ways heard with attention, he was attentive to others, and 
he was frequently the one listener to an uninteresting speech. 
Even in familiar conversation, he rarely jested outside the 
domestic circle, and, while an interesting and instructive 
conversationalist about his own fireside, he was apt to be 



428 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

taciturn and retiring in company. Had fate ordained that 
he should have reached the Presidency, he would have made 
a safe, conventional Executive, and he would be remembered 
as a pure, patriotic public servant. Such was the man who 
was to give Jackson, in the election of his successor, his only 
uneasy hours. . 

m 

The concern of the Jackson organization over White's can- 
didacy may be read in the persistency of Blair's vigorous 
denunciations in the "Washington Globe." Beginning in 
the early spring and continuing throughout the summer, the 
Administration organ teemed with attacks on the Tennessee 
Senator and his most ardent champion, John Bell, Speaker 
of the House of Representatives. The ill-advised announce- 
ment of White's followers that his candidacy was intended 
to destroy the landmarks of party gave the editor his cue. 
"This artifice," wrote Blair, "has been so frequently at- 
tempted, and in vain, by those seeking to divide and destroy 
the Republican [Democratic] Party in this country, that we 
would have supposed the design would not have been con- 
fessed on the part of those supporting the interests of a man, 
who, up to the age of sixty, at least has made it his boast to \ 
support his party firmly, as the only means of maintaining 
his principles. But he now seeks office at the hands of the 
Opposition, and like all new solicitors for the favor of Feder- 
alism, becomes a no-party man." ^ The fact that White had 
voted with the Whigs on the Fortifications Bill was made 
the text of many discourses on the questionable character of 
his patriotism; his connection with Calhoun offered the op- 
portunity to picture him as a half-disguised friend of Nulli- 
fication. The encouragement given his candidacy by the 
Whig leaders was interpreted as a desertion of the house of 
his friends to do the work of the enemy. Tying him up tightly 

1 Washington Globe, April 2, 1835. . 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 429 

with the Whigs and the Nullifiers, attacking the no-party 
idea as a wooden horse of Troy in which discredited Federal- 
ism planned to reenter the Capitol, Blair smote the Tennes- 
seean hip and thigh throughout the summer. 

But scarcely less offensive to the "Globe" than White 
was John Bell, and the determination of the organization to 
prevent his reelection to the Speakership was evident in the 
systematic attacks upon his record. Beginning in May, 
and continuing through the summer, there was scarcely an 
issue of the "Globe" that did not deal with some phase of 
Bell's alleged perfidy, in a special article.^ The virulent hos- 
tility to Bell, of the Kitchen Cabinet, was not due in whole 
to his relations with the candidacy of White. Following his 
election over Polk to the Speakership, Duff Green, in the 
"Telegraph," ascribed Polk's defeat to his support by the 
Kitchen Cabinet, and described "Kendall, Blair, and Lewis 
parading the lobby" in attempts to drum up votes for their 
favorite. This had been bluntly denied by Blair, who in- 
sisted that he had spoken to no one on the Speakership, and 
that Lewis was "known to have been inclined to Mr. Bell's 
election." ^ But the charge in the "Telegraph" had been 
accepted by many and the pride of the Jackson leaders had 
been aroused. The White candidacy. Bell's espousal of it, and 
Polk's determined stand against it, made it imperative that 
Bell should be retired in the interest of Polk. 

Meanwhile the Baltimore Convention assembled on May 
20, 1835 — an assembly that no more deserves the popular 
reproach of being a convention of office-holders than the 
average convention of the dominant party ever since. The 
absence of delegates from South Carolina and Illinois was 

1 May 28th, "Mr. Bell and the Speakership"; May 30th. "Mr. Bell and Judge 
White"; June 1st. "The Bank President and Mr. Bell"; June 2d, "Mr. Bell and 
the Bank"; June 3d, "Mr. Bell — His Banking Facilities"; June 4th. "The Result 
of Mr. Bell's Machinations"; July 3d, "Bell and Gales"; July 10th, "John Bell and 
Davy Crockett"; August 21st, "Mr. Bell's Preparation to Bargain Off Judge 
White's Party in the House of Representatives." 

* Washington Globe, June 5, 1834. 



430 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

tolerable to the Jacksonians, but the failure of Tennessee to 
appear, notwithstanding the personal importunities of the 
President, was painfully embarrassing. That had to be cor- 
rected. A comparatively unknown Tennesseean, E. Rucker, 
was found in the city, and literally pushed into the conven- 
tion to cast the unauthorized vote of Tennessee — and 
thus the word "Ruckerize" was added to the vocabulary 
of practical politicians. The polished Andrew Stevenson, 
who had resigned the Speakership to accept the diplomatic 
post in London, only to share the fate of Van Buren, was 
called upon to deliver the "keynote'* address in the capacity 
of chairman. But this honor, bestowed upon the Virginians, 
was more than neutralized by New York's desertion of her 
Virginia allies in the nomination of the vice-presidential can- 
didate. 

Never had the Old Dominion been dominated by a more 
powerful machine than that led by Judge Spencer Roane, 
a man of great intellectual force, who had been favored by 
Jefferson for the Chief Justiceship. He had a powerful col- 
league in his cousin, Thomas Ritchie, the forceful editor of 
the "Richmond Enquirer." Stevenson was an important 
member of the clique, and no one was closer to its leader than 
the scholarly Senator William C. Rives, who had, as Jackson's 
first Minister to France, negotiated the indemnity settlement. 
The Virginians had early pledged themselves to the political 
fortunes of Van Buren. The alliance of the two States, Vir- 
ginia and New York, was one of the significant facts in the 
politics of the day. Never doubting the loyalty of their ally, 
Roane and his organization determined to dictate the nomi- 
nation of Rives for the Vice-Presidency with a view to the 
succession. It was not until the eve of the convention that 
the Virginians learned, to their dismay, that the New Yorkers 
had other plans. Almost incredulous, chagrined, disturbed, 
Ritchie hastened to write Rives of the new developments. 
He had heard that "some of our strongest friends in Wash- 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 431 

ington" were looking with favor on Richard M. Johnson of 
Kentucky. Van Buren's preference was a mystery. How- 
ever, Ritchie had been pressing Rives's claims and had 
written letters, not only to delegates, but to "a gentleman 
in Washington, who can, if he thinks fit, exercise a sort of 
potential voice." But unhappily for the Virginians, Lewis, 
Kendall, Blair, Silas Wright, and Hill were opportunists, 
with their eyes upon the West, in view of the candidacy of 
both Harrison and White. It was clear to them that expedi- 
ency demanded the nomination of a Westerner for the Vice- 
Presidency. The stubborn, and now thoroughly outraged, 
Virginians refused to acquiesce in the reasoning of the 
Kitchen Cabinet, and Rives went down before the first of 
the "steam rollers" that have become so commonplace in 
national conventions.^ Thoroughly disgusted by what they 
conceived to be a betrayal, the Virginia organization declared 
open war on Johnson, and Van Buren was much perturbed. 
But that wily diplomat, assisted by Silas Wright, immedi- 
ately took personal charge of the work of conciliation, writ- 
ing numerous letters to Rives and Ritchie, and the storm 
was stilled for the time when Van Buren made a journey to 
Castle Hill, the country home of the defeated candidate, 
where the fatted calf was killed and the leaders of the Roane 
organization were invited to participate in the feast and to 
accept the apologies and pledges of the presidential nominee. 

IV 

Meanwhile the Whigs were in a quandary as to what to do, 
with their greatest popular leader, noting a tendency to set 
him aside, spending the summer at Ashland in bitterness of 
soul. In a letter written in July he had unbosomed himself 
to a friend, with the confession that he had thought it prob- 
able that his party would again turn to him, but had noted 
a tendency to "discourage the use of my name." In Ohio, 

^ Ambler's Thomas Ritchie, 170. 



432 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

where he was popular, the Legislature had discredited his 
possible candidacy by its endorsement of Justice McLean. 
In the spirit of an Achilles sulking in his tent, he discussed 
the various names canvassed, pointing out their weaknesses. 
White would be intolerable as a Whig candidate because 
"he has been throughout a supporter of the Jackson Admin- 
istration and holds no principle, except in the matter of 
patronage, as to public measures, in common with the 
WTiigs." While he thought Webster's attainments greatly 
superior to those of any other candidate, "it is to be regretted 
that a general persuasion seems to exist that he stands no 
chance." Harrison was damned with the faint praise that he 
"could easier obtain the vote of Kentucky than any other 
candidate named." The only rift in the clouds that he could 
see was in the nomination of three candidates, with White as 
one of the three, to draw off the Democratic strength in the 
South and portions of the West, and the defeat of Van Buren 
by thus throwing the contest into the House. ^ That this plan 
was uppermost in the minds of the Whigs is shown in a letter 
to Clay from James Barbour of Virginia, in August. Be- 
cause of the slavery question, he thought White the strong- 
est candidate to be pressed against Van Buren in Virginia. 
Webster was out of the question. McLean, not even con- 
sidered. Harrison, after White, would make the strongest 
appeal. "It seems to me," he continued, "that we have no 
prospect of excluding Van Buren but by the plan you suggest, 
of selecting two candidates who will be the strongest in their 
respective sections. White, I apprehend, for the South, 
Webster for the East, North and West, or whomsoever Penn- 
sylvania prefers." ^ Thus, in the correspondence of the Whig 
leaders, we have the proof that White was intrigued into 
the race by the Whigs with the view to furthering their own 
interest, and not his. 

By September, Clay, having met Harrison in Cincinnati, 

1 Clay's Works, v, 393-95. » Ibid., 397-99. 



and finding him "respectful and cordial," was more cordial 
toward his candidacy, although he preferred any choice 
Pennsylvania might announce. The Rhode Island and Con- 
necticut elections had shown that "it is in vain to look even 
to New England for the support of Mr. Webster." ^ Out of 
this confusion of counsels, Harrison ultimately emerged with 
the general support of the Whigs, but, like the Democrats, 
the Whigs were to be embarrassed by a double tail to their 
ticket. With the popular sentiment favoring Tyler, the 
politicians, with their eyes on the Anti-Masons, nominated 
Granger. It was the contention of contemporaries that Clay, 
who had engineered the move against Tyler, feared that 
the concentration of the Whigs on some strong candidate for 
the Vice-Presidency might result in his election with Van 
Buren, because of the dissatisfaction of the Virginia Whigs 
with Johnson; and that a Whig Vice-President, under a 
Democratic President, would become a formidable rival for 
the presidential nomination in 1840. ^ Both Tyler and 
Granger, however, remained in the field, thus dividing the 
vote in the election. 

The Massachusetts Whigs, nothing daunted by the tura 
of affairs, remained faithful to Webster, who was placed in 
the field; and in South Carolina, where Calhoun's followers 
made a point of separating themselves from all parties and 
all other States, Senator Willie P. Mangum was nominated. 
Thus, in the campaign of 1836 there were five candidates, 
with the Democrats united behind Van Buren, and the Oppo- 
sition dividing its strength between Harrison, White, Web- 
ster, and Mangum. Nothing could have been more to the 
liking of the Democracy. It entered the campaign in solid 
ranks except in Tennessee, where even the magic name of 
Jackson was unable to prevent a schism which was to result 
in the humiliation of the venerable chief. 

1 Clay's Works, v, 399. « Letters and Times of the Tylers, i. 519. 



434 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

V 

During the summer of 1835 the militant methods of the 
Abolitionists forced the slavery question to the front to the 
embarrassment of the poHticians and the candidates. The 
Nation was still on edge because of the anti-slavery and anti- 
abolition riots of the year before, when George Thompson, 
the Abolition firebrand from England, arrived in America 
with exhortations to the Northerners to end slavery at once. 
The South was outraged, the North, shocked. Coincident 
with Thompson's mad crusade, the American Anti-Slavery 
Society, having collected a large sum of money for the pur- 
pose, began to circularize the country, and especially the 
South, with literature calculated to arouse the slaves to 
insurrection.^ The defense of the abolitionists was that 
the literature was sent to the whites alone; but much of it 
fell into the hands of the blacks, and excitement reached 
fever heat. In Philadelphia a pouch of these tracts was 
confiscated by a mob, and sunk in the Delaware River. In 
Charleston the mail was searched for them, and three 
thousand citizens assembled at night to witness their de- 
struction in a bonfire. Mass meetings were held in all the 
larger Northern cities to denounce the desperate enter- 
prise of the abolitionists, and in Boston the citizens packed 
Faneuil Hall to hear Harrison Gray Otis denounce them in 
a spirited address. When Thompson, in one of his inflam- 
matory speeches, proposed that the slaves should arise and 
cut their masters' throats, the bitterness in the North was 
as pronounced as in the South, and after Garrison had 
narrowly escaped the rope through the intercession of the 
Mayor of Boston, whom he had scathingly attacked in his 
paper, the English orator went into hiding until he could 
be spirited out of the country. The most important effect 
of this miserable blunder of the abolitionists was to force 

* John Quincy Adams could see no other object. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 435 

the slavery question into politics, and from that hour 
on, the slave-owners of the South became dominant in the 
politics of the Republic. 

It is certain that Jackson, like all other responsible leaders, 
abhorred these appeals to the slaves to rise and cut their 
masters' throats. The burden of dealing with an important 
phase of the problem, the transmission of such matter through 
the mail, fell upon the Administration, and in the absence of 
any law to prevent it. But when the postmasters of New 
York and Charleston wrote Postmaster-General Kendall for 
instructions, that astute politician replied that the United 
States should not carry such matter in the mail; and, acting 
upon the hint, the postmasters threw all such matter out 
with the tacit consent of the Government. 

The Opposition, however, planned to turn the hatred of 
the abolitionists against Van Buren, who was hostile to the 
extension of slavery. Writing to Clay in the late summer of 
1835, Senator Barbour rejoiced in the injection of the slavery 
question as certain to injure the Democratic nominee.^ The 
close political associates of Van Buren were keenly alive to 
the danger, and John Forsyth wrote him that unless some- 
thing should be done in New York he "should not be at all 
surprised at a decisive movement to establish a Southern 
Confederacy," and suggested that "a portion of the Magi- 
cian's skill is required in this matter . . . and the sooner 
you set the imps to work the better." ^ Whether the wily 
politician "set the imps to work" we do not know, but within 
a month of the writing of the letter the New York postmaster 
publicly announced that he would refuse to forward the 
objectionable literature. This was given the widest publicity; 
so, too, the letter of Amos Kendall accepting and endorsing 
the action of the New York official. And about the same 
time, whether due to the Van Buren " imps " or not, one of the 

1 Clay's Works, v, 378. 

* Forsyth to Van Buren, Butler's Retrospect of Forty Years, 78, 79. 



436 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

greatest meetings ever held in New York was held in the park 
to denounce the methods of the abolitionists. Nothing was 
done by Van Buren personally, in a public way, to divorce 
himself from all sympathy with the abolition movement. 

The Whig nominee, determined publicly to repudiate the 
abolition methods, found an opportunity at a dinner in his 
honor at Vincennes, Indiana, in a speech intended as a 
friendly gesture to the slave-holding States, and for the cul- 
tivation of such of those in Virginia as were prone to as- 
sociate Van Buren with the abolition sentiment in portions 
of New York.^ The position of White was as clearly fixed 
on slavery as that of Calhoun, and we shall observe a little 
later how the latter sought to place Van Buren in a position 
hostile to Southern interests. 

VI 

Meanwhile Van Buren serenely went his way, undisturbed 
by the storm, and in the best of humor. Soon after the Bal- 
timore Convention, the most unconventional campaign biog- 
raphy ever published in America was issued by a Philadel- 
phia publishing house and given an extensive circulation. 
The present generation scarcely realizes that there were two 
Davy Crocketts — the man of the woods and the fight, and 
the less admirable creature who made a rather sorry figure in 
the Congress. It was the latter who was persuaded to write 
a part, and to father all, of this scurrilous biography of Van 
Buren, although it is generally accepted that Hugh Lawson 
W'hite, the man of ponderous dignity and lofty ideals, was 
the man behind this questionable literary venture. ^ The per- 
sonal references to Van Buren are crudely and coarsely of- 
fensive throughout. 

"He is about fifty years old," he wrote, "and notwith- 
standing his baldness, which reaches all around and half 

1 See Montgomery's Life of Harrison, 308-10. 

» Tliis is Shepard's view in his Lije oj Van Buren, 256. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 437 

down his head, like a white pitch plaster, leaving a few 
white floating locks, he is only three years older than I am. 
His face is a good deal shriveled, and he looks sorry, not 
for anything he has gained, but what he may lose." ^ In 
describing his subject's mental operations, he found that 
"his mind beats round, like a tame bear tied to a stake, in a 
little circle, hardly bigger than the circumference of the head 
in which it is placed, seeking no other object than to convert 
the Government into an instrument to serve himself or his 
office-holding friends." ^ 

In explaining Van Buren's rise, the hero of young Texas 
proceeded: "He has become a great man without any 
reason for it, and so have I. He has been nominated for 
President without the least pretensions; and so have I. 
But here the similarity stops. From his cradle he was on 
the non-committal tribe. I never was. He had always two 
ways to do a thing; I never had but one. He was generally 
half bent; I tried to be as straight as a gun barrel. He could 
not bear his rise; I never minded mine. He forgot all his 
old associates because they were poor folks; I stuck to the 
people that made me." ^ 

And in a superb bit of demagogy, Crockett described 
Van Buren as traveling through the country in an English 
coach with "English servants dressed in uniform — I 
think they call it livery"; refusing to mix "with the sons of 
the little tavern-keepers," forgetting "his old companions 
and friends in the humbler walks of life"; eating "in a room 
by himself," and carrying himself "so stiff in his gait and 
prim in his dress, that he was what the English call a Dandy." 
The reader was assured that "when he enters the Senate 
Chamber in the morning, he struts and swaggers like a crow 
in a gutter," that he "is laced up in corsets such as women 
in town wear, and if possible tighter than the best of them.'* 
Indeed, Crockett found it "difficult to tell from his personal 

1 Crockett's Ldfe of Van Buren, 26. 2 Ibid., 58. » Ibid., 27. 



438 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

appearance whether he was a man or a woman." ^ The Eaton 
scandal was salaciously served anew, the fight between Jack- 
son and Benton was described in detail, and, unfortunately 
for his candidate for President, a chapter was devoted to a 
hot defense of White on the Bank and on the Fortifications 
Bill. 

The book, now happily forgotten, is only interesting and 
historically important in indicating the tone of the political 
contests of the time, and the scurrility of the attacks on Van 
Buren in the campaign. If the Little Magician enjoyed the 
queer concoction, it was not without the realization of its 
possibility for doing harm. At any rate, a little later, another 
and a friendly biography by Holland was published, seriously 
reviewing Van Buren's public career. While not written ia 
bad taste, it aroused the ire of John Quincy Adams who took 
the time to read it. "A mere partisan electioneering work,'* 
he wrote in his diary. "Van Buren's personal character bears, 
however, a stronger resemblance to that of Mr. Madison 
than to that of Mr. Jefferson, These are both remarkable for 
their extreme caution in avoiding and averting personal colli- 
sions. Van Buren, like the Sosie of Moliere's 'Amphitryon,' 
is 'I'ami de tout le monde.' This is perhaps the secret of his 
great success in public life, and especially against the com- 
petitors with whom he is now struggling for the last step 
on the ladder of his ambition — Henry Clay and John C. 
Calhoun. They, indeed, are left upon the field for dead; 
and men of straw, Hugh L. W^hite, William Henry Harrison, 
and Daniel Webster, are thrust forward in their places. 
Neither of these has a principle to lean upon." ^ 

If these intrigues and attacks disturbed Van Buren in 
the least, he gave no sign. During a ten-day sojourn in 
New York in October, Philip Hone, who vainly sought an 
open date to entertain him at dinner, found "his outward 
appearance like the unruffled surface of the majestic river 

1 Crockett's Life of Van Buren, 80. * Adams's Diary. April 13. 1835. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 439 

which covers rocks and whirlpools, but shows no marks of 
the agitation beneath." ^ In this same good temper, he 
faced the ordeal of presiding over the Senate, dominated 
by his poHtical foes, in the long session preceding the elec- 
tion. We shall here find him threading his way among pit- 
falls provided by his enemies with such skill as to conceal 
all effort. 

vn 

The halls of Congress in the session of December, 1835, were 
used as the hustings, and there, largely, the presidential 
battle was fought. The first blow was struck by the Jack- 
sonians in the election of Polk to the Speakership, over Bell. 
The latter was a man of much capacity, considered by Van 
Buren as the intellectual superior of White, and he had been 
elected to the Speakership, on the resignation of Stevenson, 
through a combination of the Whigs and anti-Administra- 
tion Democrats. In seeking a reconciliation with the Jack- 
sonians, he had hinted at a desire for a confidential confer- 
ence with Van Buren, and the two were finally invited to 
dine with a mutual friend. Unhappily for Bell, a severe tooth- 
ache, real or diplomatic, forced the candidate of the Jack- 
sonian Democracy to retire the moment the ladies left the 
table. When a few days later the two found themselves to- 
gether on the speakers' rostrum on the occasion of the de- 
livery of Adams's oration on Lafayette, Bell had attempted 
to discuss the differences of the factions, but the canny Red 
Fox "put a civil end to the conversation with a few general 
remarks in regard to the duty the friends of Judge White 
owed" to the party, and soon afterward the Tennessee Sena- 
tor had entered the field, and Bell was forced to espouse his 
cause. ^ Thus the course of history may have been changed 
by the toothache of a politician. At any rate, it was enough, 
to the Jacksonian leaders, to know that Polk had risked his 

» Hone's Dia,y, Oct. 26, 1835. « Van Buren's A^ttobiography. 225-26, n. 



440 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

popularity and future by taking the offensive in favor of 
Van Buren, and he was rewarded with the Speakership. 

The Whigs instantly accepted the challenge by bitterly 
opposing the confirmation of Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice 
of the United States. No one questioned his professional 
ability or his eminent fitness for a high judicial position. 
Bitterly hostile as he was to Jackson's Bank policy, John 
Marshall had recognized Taney's qualifications for the bench 
when the President had previously made an unsuccessful 
attempt to elevate his former Secretary of the Treasury to 
that tribunal. At that time the venerable Chief Justice had 
quietly interested himself in his successor's behalf, and among 
the papers of Senator Leigh, still in possession of the family, 
is the brief but significant note from Marshall: "If you have 
not made up your mind on the nomination of Mr. Taney, I 
have received some information in his favor which I would 
wish to communicate." ^ But after Marshall's death and 
Taney's appointment, the Whig and pro-Bank politicians 
attempted to array all the late jurist's friends and admirers 
against the confirmation by picturing Jackson as not only 
hostile to the trend of his decisions, but to the perpetuation 
of his memory. The "Richmond Whig" announced that "he 
[Jackson] thinks undue honors have been rendered to the 
memory of General Marshall, and predicts that the attempt 
to build a monument to his memory in Washington will fail." 
This was a willful perversion of a comment actually made 
to the editor of the "Southern Literary Messenger" at Rip 
Raps, that, in view of Jackson's inability to interest Congress 
in an appropriation for a monument to Washington, he was 
afraid that it would be impossible to build one to Marshall.^ 
But the idea of the fighting Secretary of the Treasury in the 
seat of Marshall was maddening to the Whig leaders, and 

^ Tyler's Life of Taney. 

* Blair gives the details of the conversation, in which he participated, in the 
Olobe of August 12. 183«. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 441 

the nomination was attacked with intemperance and even 
scurrility by both Webster and Clay, and it was not until 
in March, three months after the nomination was sent to 
the Senate, that it was confirmed. 

But the appearance of resolutions from legislatures, in- 
structing Whig and pro-Bank Senators to vote to expunge 
the resolution of censure against Jackson, was the most bitter 
pill of all. Not only did it further embitter the Whigs against 
the Administration, but it put them at loggerheads with each 
other. This was especially true of the Whig Senators from 
Virginia, Tyler and Leigh, who took opposite views as to the 
inviolability of instructions. Throughout his entire career, 
Tyler had stoutly insisted upon the right of the people, 
speaking through their legislatures, to instruct their repre- 
sentatives in the Senate. This position had been adopted by 
the Virginia Whigs, and accepted by the people of the State. 
Because of this, Leigh now sat in the Senate, in the seat from 
which Rives had been instructed. But when a resolution was 
introduced in the Virginia Assembly, instructing the Sena- 
tors from that State to vote to expunge, the Whigs began to 
divide on the question of compliance in the event of its adop- 
tion. There was never any question as to the attitude of 
John Tyler. Pilloried in history as a second-rate politician 
and a weakling, it is impossible to study his career without 
being impressed with his consistency, which was all too rare 
in his generation, and the unfaltering courage with which he 
lived up to his principles, regardless of the effect upon his 
personal fortunes. But Leigh, who owed his seat in the 
Senate to the principle of instructions, was made of less 
heroic clay. With the encouragement of Virginians, includ- 
ing Judge Brooke, who always reflected the views of Henry 
Clay, he began to hedge. Senator Barbour, another of Clay's 
intimates, urged upon Tyler sophisticated reasons for ignor- 
ing the instructions.^ When the resolutions were adopted in 

* Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 527. 



442 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the lower branch of the legislature, the pressure of the Whigs 
to ignore them met with a gracious yielding on the part of 
Leigh, and the unscrupulous partisans were able to concen- 
trate their efforts on Tyler. Such was the logic of party 
bigotry in 1836 that the Maryland Legislature, which had 
nominated Tyler for the Vice-Presidency, threatened to re- 
scind the nomination if he complied with the instructions, and 
the future President, the truckling, tricky politician of his- 
torical caricature, expressed his disgust in a letter to his son : 
*' These incidents look almost like a political romance in these 
days when everything is surrendered for office. . . . Give me 
the assurance that history will do me justice . . . and I will 
go to my grave in peace." '■ When the resolution was passed by 
both branches, and certified to the two Senators, Tyler, with- 
out a moment's hesitation, resigned in a dignified letter to 
Van Buren, and retired to private life. Leigh ignored the in- 
structions and retained his seat, but resigned in July. This 
contradiction sadly crippled the Whigs in Virginia; and 
when, during the spring, a dinner was given the two Sena- 
tors by their fellow partisans, and Tyler was lauded for his 
act, the spicy Thomas Ritchie, of the "Richmond Enquirer," 
insisted that two of the toasts were: 

"John Tyler: Honor to him, because he could not, with 
honor, retain his seat." 

"Senator Leigh: Honor to him, because he could not, with 
honor, relinquish his seat." 

Thus Tyler passed from the ranks of the Opposition in 
the Senate, and William C. Rives, the friend of Jackson and 
Van Buren, vindicated by events, returned to strengthen the 
forces of the Administration. 

The attitude of Ewing of Ohio toward similar resolutions 
by the legislature of his State was that of Leigh. ^ 

All these manifestations of popular approval of the Admin- 

^ Letters and Times of the Tylers, i, 537. 

2 Cotig. Globe, 1st Session, 24tb Congress, 308. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 443 

ist ration, and dissatisfaction with the Whigs and their alh'es 
in the Senate, tended to infuriate the Opposition which 
found itself helpless before the tide. In Tennessee, how- 
ever, the Administration was unable to secure instructions 
aimed at White, and the attempt merely furnished the oppor- 
tunity for laudatory speeches on the Tennessee Senator, 
and bitter denunciations of the proposal to expunge. This 
defeat in Tennessee was the only hopeful sign that reached 
the Whigs in Washington.^ 

The greater part of the congressional session was devoted 
to some phase of the abolition agitation, and Calhoun bent 
all his efforts toward arraying the North and South against 
each other. He seemed determined to have it that the North- 
ern people were in sympathy with the methods and purposes 
of the radical followers of Garrison. The mobs that had all 
but lynched Garrison, and forced the friends of Thompson 
to spirit him away, were Northern mobs. If the obnoxious 
literature had been burned by the people of Charleston, it 
had been thrown into the river by the people of Philadelphia 
and denounced by the people of Boston. No Northern states- 
man or politician had raised a voice in defense of the aboli- 
tionists, and most of them vied with Calhoun in their de- 
nunciation of them. But when, on January 7th, an abolition 
petition was presented, and Calhoun moved that it be not 
received and supported his motion in an intemperate speech, 
some of the most pronounced pro-slavery Senators took 
alarm. The great Nullifier declared that an irrepressible fight 
had been forced and should be met. "We must meet the 
enemy on the frontier — on the question of receiving," he 
said. "We must secure that important pass — it is our 
Thermopylae. The power of resistance, by the universal law, 
is on the exterior. Break through the shell, penetrate the 
crust, and there is no resistance within." When, four days 

1 For story of the attempt see Foster's letter to White, Memoir of Hugh Lawson 
White, 337-38. 



444 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

later, Buchanan presented a petition for the aboHtion of 
slavery in the District of Columbia and moved that it be 
received and rejected, Calhoun demanded that the question 
be put first on receiving, and a debate was precipitated which 
dragged along for weary weeks, ending in the defeat of Cal- 
houn's plan. 

During the period of these intermittent discussions, 
the "Telegraph," reflector of Calhoun, teemed with articles 
bitterly attacking, not so much the abolitionists as the 
North. This determination to treat the Northerners as ene- 
mies of Southern institutions was so apparent that a number 
of pro-slavery Southern Senators were moved to protest and 
to criticism of the Southern leader. Whether he was actuated, 
that early, by a desire to lay the foundation for a Southern 
Confederacy, or merely used this method to create feeling in 
the Southern States against the candidacy of Van Buren, 
can never be determined. But the Democrats supporting 
Van Buren had no doubt that the latter was the dominating 
motive. The sharp-tongued Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire, 
in a fierce assault on Calhoun's position, directly charged 
that the "Telegraph" had been exerting itself from the time 
of the Nullification movement to drive a wedge between the 
sections, and warned Calhoun that the agitation he was forcing 
on Congress played directly into the hands of the abolitionists. 
But the latter had determined upon his course, and appeared 
not only willing, but anxious, actually to break with the 
friends of the South among the Northerners in Congress. 

If he expected, however, in his fight against receiving the 
petitions, to prove Van Buren hostile to the interest of the 
South, he failed. The ten votes he mustered were recruited 
from both parties. Five were Whigs, ^ three were Democrats 
supporting the Administration,^ and two were against the 

^ Black of Mississippi; Leigli of Virginia; Nicholas and Porter of Louisiana; and 
Preston of South Carolina. 

- Cuthbert, Moore, and Walker. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 445 

Administration and hostile to Van Buren.* Thus, with the 
exception of three Senators, all the supporters of Van Buren 
and the Administration voted to receive the petitions. The 
vote of White was unquestionably political, intended to 
strengthen his candidacy among the pro-slavery radicals 
of the Southern States. 

But Calhoun was not discouraged. His political motive 
was more apparent in the battle over his bill to regulate the 
transmission of the mails, and exclude therefrom all abolition 
literature intended for the slave-holding States. We have 
noted the excitement of the preceding summer, and the atti- 
tude of Kendall. In his Message at the opening of Congress, 
Jackson had recommended the enactment of such a law "as 
will prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the 
Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications 
intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection." Calhoun 
had eagerly seized upon this recommendation to move its 
reference to a special committee, instead of to the regularly 
organized Committee on Post-Offices. Buchanan opposed 
the suggestion on the ground that the unusual course would 
tend to increase the excitement of the people.^ Grundy of 
Tennessee held that the very fact that the majority of the 
Committee on Post-Offices came from a section not directly 
interested would give more weight to its recommenda- 
tions.^ King of Alabama took advantage of Calhoun's queer 
disclaimer of a political motive to insinuate its existence, 
and favored the regular course for the reasons advanced by 
Buchanan.* Leigh supported Calhoun's plan on the fantastic 
ground that since the obnoxious mail could not be excluded 
by the existing post-office regulations, the Committee on 
Post-Offices was clearly not the proper body.^ But it was 
left to Preston of South Carolina to explain bluntly the mo- 

• Calhoun and White. 

• Cong. Globe, 1st Session, 24th Congress, Dec. 21, 1835. 

• im. * Ibid. , 6 Ilnd. 



446 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

tive of Calhoun. Since the South was especially interested, 
the committee should be composed of Senators from the 
slave-holding States. The Senate good-naturedly consented 
to Calhoun's plan, and a special committee was named with 
Calhoun as chairman. ■ 

A little later, an extreme bill, professing to meet the views 
of the President, was submitted, accompanied by an inflam- 
matory report, reiterative of the compact theory of the Con- 
stitution, and calculated further to fan the excitement on 
the subject of abolition. Both the Administration and Whig 
leaders were hostile to the measure, but it best served the 
purpose of Calhoun to ignore the Whigs and to harp inces- 
santly upon the opposition from Senators close to the Jackson- 
Van Buren organization. The report, according to the inter- 
pretation of Calhoun, set forth three propositions: that the 
National Government had no right to prohibit papers, no 
right to say what papers should be transmitted, and that 
these rights belonged to the States.^ The bill provided that 
it should be a crime for a postmaster knowingly to receive 
and put into the mail any written, printed, or pictorial 
matter concerning slavery, directed to any post-office in a 
State which prohibited the circulation of such matter; that 
such literature, if not withdrawn from the mails within a 
given time, should be burned; and it made the Postmaster- 
General and all his subordinates responsible for the enforce- 
ment of the law. 

Early in the debate the political motive appeared when 
King of Alabama again charged Calhoun with being moved 
by hostility to Jackson. What, exclaimed the bristling 
Carolinian, "I have too little respect for General Jackson's 
judgment, and if he were not President of the United States, 
I would say for his character, to place myself in such a posi- 
tion." * On the following day we find him striking the same 
note: "I cannot but be surprised at the course of the friends 

* Calhoun's speech, Cong. Globe, April 12, 1836. ^ /^j^^ 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 447 

of the Executive," he said. "I have heard Senators denounce 
this measure, recommended by the Executive, as unconsti- 
tutional, as tyrannical, as an abuse of power, who never 
before dared whisper a word against the Administration. Is 
it because the present Executive is going out of power that 
his influence is declining.'^" ^ This constant harping on the 
attitude of the Administration Senators, whether so intended 
or not, was looked upon by them as an attempt to make 
political capital against Van Buren in the slave States. "I 
wish the gentleman would restrain the frequent repetition 
of such expressions," said Cuthbert of Georgia, "as they 
necessarily bring on him a suspicion of his sincerity. Why 
should this be a party question? It would show a wicked- 
ness, a recklessness of the welfare of our common country 
for any man to endeavor to make it so." ^ 

But Calhoun persisted in his attempt to maneuver the 
friends of Van Buren into an attitude offensive to the South- 
ern States. Benton notes, significantly, that it was rather 
remarkable that three tie votes occurred in succession, two 
on amendments, and one on the engrossment of the bill. 
His clear implication is that this was done to force Van Bu- 
ren to cast a deciding vote, never doubting that it would be 
hostile to the measure. When the bill came up for engross- 
ment, Calhoun demanded an aye and nay vote. When three 
men appeared to make a majority, three on the other side 
instantly appeared. At the time the vote was being taken. 
Van Buren had left the chair and was pacing up and down, 
concealed by the colonnade, behind the rostrum. Benton 
says that "his eyes were wide open to see what would hap- 
pen." ^ He observed the keen eyes of the excited Calhoun 
searching the chamber for his anticipated prey. He heard 
him ask "eagerly and loudly" where the Vice-President 
had gone, and demand that the sergeant-at-arms look for 
him. But Van Buren had heard and seen all, and, when the 

» Cong. Globe. April 13, 1836. « Ibid. » Thirty Years View. i. 587. 



448 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

time came, he calmly took the chair, and with his charac- 
teristic serenity cast the deciding vote in favor of engross- 
ment, Benton was positive that had he voted otherwise the 
Calhoun faction, with the aid of the "Telegraph," would have 
inflamed the South against him. This would have been all the 
easier because Hugh Lawson White, who was playing openly 
for the extreme State-Rights and pro-slavery support, voted 
for the bill. But Van Buren and his friends were not blind 
to the conspiracy, and the two Democratic Senators from 
New York, intimate political friends of the presidential nomi- 
nee, ascertaining first that their votes were not needed to 
defeat the measure, cast expediency votes in its favor, and 
thus robbed Calhoun and White of the opportunity to make 
political capital out of the bill. It was defeated by a vote of 
25 to 19.1 

Thus the session dragged on into June, with none of the 
parties gaining any material advantage for the purposes of 
the campaign. As the session was drawing to a close. Senator 
White, who took his candidacy more to heart than any of 
the other candidates, made a discussion of the resolution to 
expunge the occasion for an acidulous attack upon Jackson 
in the presence of Van Buren, who serenely presided. He 
charged that Jackson had "made up his mind who should 
be his successor," and had used all the power of patronage to 
destroy him (White). With great particularity, he went over 
the part the President was taking in the canvass then on, the 
letters he had written, the copies of the "Washington Globe" 
he had personally franked, the material he had furnished 
White's enemies upon the stump in Tennessee. ^ The personal 
tone of the attack appears to have made a painful impression 
even upon White's friends, and certainly did not disturb 

"» * Charles. H. Peck in The Jacksonian Epoch, implies (p. 281) that the tie vote was 
arranged by Van Buren's friends, but Benton, who was one of the most intimate, 
takes the opposite view. In his Autobiography, Van Buren makes no reference to 
the incident. 

' Memoir of Hugh Lawson White, 340-42. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 449 

the smiling complacency of Van Buren, who listened with 
courteous attention. The "Congressional Globe" of the ses- 
sion is filled with such assaults on Jackson and his Admin- 
istration, but the Big- Wigs of both parties, with the excep- 
tion of Calhoun and White, maintained an unusual reserve. 
But Calhoun did his part in full measure. Not only did he 
abuse Jackson with indecent invective, but, in the presence 
of Van Buren, sneered at the latter's character and ability. 
Jackson had "courage and firmness; is warlike, bold, auda- 
cious; but he is not true to his word and violates the most 
solemn pledges without scruple." He had "done the State 
some service, too, which is remembered greatly to his advan- 
tage." But Van Buren "has none of these recommenda- 
tions." No, as Senator Mangum^ had said, he "has none of 
the lion or tiger breed about him; he belongs more to the fox 
and the weasel." ^ 

With nothing better to offer than this, the tired statesmen 
adjourned on July 4th, and hastened to their homes, some to 
sulk in their tents in disgust, others to take the field to wage 
the fight. 

vm 

In 1836 the issues of the campaign were not so clearly de- 
fined by conditions as in 1832, nor by platform declarations, 
as in more recent years. The party declarations of prin- 
ciple had no meaning. That of the Democrats could have 
summed up all in the endorsement of the Jackson Admin- 
istration and a pledge to continue the Jacksonian policies; 
that of the Whigs in a denunciation of the principles and 
policies of Jacksonian Democracy. 

The platform of Senator White is found in his letter in re- 
ply to that of a committee informing him of his nomination 
— a personal protest. "When an attempt is made," he 
wrote, "to create a party not founded upon settled politi- 

1 South Carolina's papflidate for President. » Cong. Globe, Feb. 17, 1836. 



450 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

cal principles, composed of men belonging to every political 
sect, having no common bond of unity save that of a wish to 
place one of themselves in the highest office known to the 
Constitution, for the purpose of having all the honors, offices, 
and emoluments of the Government distributed by them 
among their followers, I consider such an association, 
whether composed of many or a few, a mere faction, which 
ought to be resisted by every man who loves his country, 
and wishes to perpetuate its liberties." ^ 

The most influential leaders of the Whigs were not en- 
thusiastic over any of the Opposition candidates, with the 
exception of Webster, who manifestly had no chance. 
"White and Webster are now the golden calves of the peo- 
ple," wrote the caustic Adams, "and their dull sayings are 
repeated for wit, and their grave inanity is passed off for wis- 
dom. This bolstering up of mediocrity would seem not suited 
to sustain much enthusiasm." Such as there was, the cynical 
Puritan ascribed to the fact that "a practice of betting has 
crept in," and "that adds a spur of private, personal, and 
pecuniary interest to the impulse of patriotism." ^ Naturally, 
Adams was not enamoured of Van Buren, who impressed 
him as a "demagogue of the same school [as "Ike" Hill] 
with a tincture of aristocracy — an amalgamated metal of 
lead and copper." ^ 

There was no hero worshiping of the candidates in 1836, 
but the worship of Jackson continued, and the Whigs con- 
templated the phenomenon with melancholy misgivings. 
Philip Hone, that faithful chronicler of Whig sentiment, 
found the pohtical aspect of the country "worse than ever." 
Indeed, "General Jackson's star is still in the ascendant and 
shines brighter than ever." A month before the nomination 

' Memoir of Hugh Lawson White, 333-34. 

2 Adams's Memoirs, Nov. 11, 1836. 

3 Ibid., Oct. 9. 1834. As we have noted, however, Adams in other parts of his 
diary is cordial to Van Buren, and Van Buren's Autobiography shows the latter to 
have admired Adams. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 451 

of Van Buren, the Whig diarist had been forced to admit 
that business conditions had vastly improved. ^ In truth the 
Whigs were without an issue they dared advance, and could 
hope for success only through the amalgamation of all the 
disgruntled with the Whigs — the Anti-Masons, Nullifiers, 
State-Rights extremists, and disappointed office-seekers — 
and this was manifestly impossible. 

The campaign was not so exciting as that of 1832, and 
lacked the hysteria of the stump which characterized that 
of 1840. The newspapers were relied upon largely for propa- 
ganda, and the "Globe" was summoned to herculean efforts. 
To meet the work of Blair, a campaign paper, called the 
"Appeal," was established in Washington to advocate the 
claims of White. The "Telegraph," edited by the frenzied 
Duff Green, viciously attacked both Jackson and Van Buren. 
And the work of these papers colored that of all the minor 
papers of the country. But the people remained calm and 
indifferent. The attacks upon the candidates, many bald 
slanders, stirred no one but the politicians. The custom of 
interrogating candidates had now become fixed, and the 
three aspirants were bombarded with questions covering a 
multitude of subjects. 

The followers of Calhoun feverishly continued their efforts 
to embarrass Van Buren on the abolition movement. From 
North Carolina came a demand for his position on the right 
of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. 
His answer was not as definite as the questioner had hoped. 
There was no question as to the right of Congress to act in 
the District, but the wily candidate had no intention to give 
a curt reply. His answer was that Congress had no right to 
interfere with slavery in the States — a question not put; 
and that he was opposed to the abolishment of slavery in 
the District by congressional action — which was not a reply 
at all. 

^ Hone's Diary, April 8, 1836. 



452 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Then followed the questions of the Equal Righters, or 
Locofocos, as they were dubbed in New York by the " Cou- 
rier and Enquirer," as to Van Buren's position on their 
"declaration of rights." The reply of the Red Fox, that his 
long public career furnished a sufficient illumination of his 
position on the general principles of the new party, was 
considered by the Locos as an "evasion," and denounced 
as unsatisfactory "to any true Democrat." 

Meanwhile Clay was exercising an unnatural restraint on 
his partisan zeal, remaining in strict retirement at Ashland, 
tending his cattle, looking over his fields, writing an occa- 
sional letter, and meditating a retirement from the Senate 
before the next session. During the preceding winter, the 
death of a favorite daughter had crushed him to the earth. 
He keenly felt the apparent neglect of his party. In the 
canvass he took no part. It was not until the campaign was 
Hearing its close, in October, that he appeared upon the plat- 
form to discuss the candidates, and then with evident reluc- 
tance. A barbecue had been arranged at Lexington, within 
sight of Clay's home, and a declination to participate would 
have given deadly offense. He spoke, however, with un- 
usual temperance, urging a unification of the opposition 
against Van Buren. This was to have been expected. Paying 
tribute to the civic worth of White, he announced his inten- 
tion to vote for Harrison, not because he was his first choice 
— for he pretended to prefer Webster — but because he 
thought that Harrison "combined the greatest prospects of 
defeating Mr. Van Buren." ^ 

If Clay was indifferent, his old rival, Andrew Jackson, was 
not. Assuming the certainty of his favorite's election, his 
personal pride was touched by White's challenge of his own 
leadership in Tennessee, and as soon as Congress adjourned, 
he started on the long and tiresome journey to the Hermitage. 

I Clay to White. Memoir of Hugh Lawson White, 367. Clay's real dislike of Webster 
is discussed by Van Buren in his Autobiography, 677-79. 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 453 

Passing through eastern Tennessee, he appeared frankly in 
the role of a canvasser for votes. With old-time fire, he de- 
nounced his erstwhile friend, the Senator, as a Federalist — • 
a discovery he had but recently made; and with all the fer- 
vor of Jacksonian friendship he held Van Buren up as the 
purest and most uncompromising of Democrats. The dom- 
ineering quality of his leadership flared in his declaration 
that no friend of White's could be other than his own enemy. 
At Blountville, Jonesboro, Greenville, Newport, Lebanon, 
and Nashville — every point he touched — he delivered 
political harangues in conversations with the friends and 
admirers who flocked to greet him.^ Thus he employed every 
method known to electioneering, short of actually taking 
the stump. 

This effort of the President was met by White with a power- 
ful speech at Knoxville, where a banquet in his honor was 
arranged for the purpose. " It is not I who am to be put down 
and disgraced in this controversy, if Tennessee is either 
coaxed or coerced to surrender her choice," he said. "The 
Saviour of the World, when upon earth, found among the 
small number of His disciples, one Judas, who not only sold 
but betrayed him for his thirty pieces of silver. It were vain 
for one of my humble attainments, who has nothing to offer 
but his best efforts to promote the public welfare, to hope 
that all who professed to be his friends must continue to act 
up to that character. Already have I found more than one 
Judas, who, by parting with their interest in me, have re- 
ceived, or expect to receive, more than twice their thirty 
pieces." "^ Thus, however tame the campaign elsewhere, it 
was a hand-to-hand struggle in the President's own State — 
and here Jackson was to meet the greatest humiliation of 
his career. 

^ For Jackson's activities in Tennessee see Meynoir of Hugh Lawson White, 356. 
^ White's speech. Memoir of Hugh Lawson White, 3-16-55. 



454 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

IX 

The elections in 1836 were not held on the same day in all 
the States, and from November 4th, when Pennsylvania and 
Ohio voted, until November 23d, when the election was held 
in Rhode Island, the politicians were kept in suspense, and 
it was not until the first week in December that the Demo- 
crats were able to rejoice in the certainty of their victory. 
Massachusetts, which then idolized her Webster, gave him 
her electoral vote, and stood alone. South Carolina, which 
had encouraged White to enter the contest, again sulked, 
and, going outside the list of avowed candidates, gave hers to 
Senator Willie Mangum, of North Carolina. White greatly 
disappointed the Whigs, who had expected him to get enough 
votes in the Southern and Western States to throw the con- 
test into the House of Representatives, by carrying only 
Tennessee and Georgia. Harrison received the electoral 
votes of Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New 
Jersey, Ohio, and Vermont — a total of 73; while Van Buren 
won Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Is- 
land in New England; Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mis- 
sissippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia in the South; 
Illinois and Michigan in the West; and both the most im- 
portant States in the Union, Pennsylvania and New York. 
With only 124 electoral votes divided among his four oppo- 
nents, Van Buren had 170, a majority of 46. 

However, in the results the more prescient of the Demo- 
cratic leaders could find ample justification for concern as 
to the future. The votes of Georgia, Indiana, New Jersey, 
Ohio, and Tennessee, which had gone to Jackson four years 
before, had been lost by Van Buren, and he had gained only 
Connecticut. But the electoral vote does not indicate the full 
extent of the Democratic slump. The popular vote in some 
of the States he had carried had fallen off woefully from the 
previous election. The Democratic majority in Virginia had 



THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION 455 

decreased from 22,158 to 6893; in Illinois from 8718 to 3114; 
in North Carolina from 20,299 to 3284. As compared with 
Jackson's popular majority of 157,293 in 1832, Van Buren 
won only on a popular majority of 24,893 out of a total of 
1,498,205 votes cast. In his own State of New York, how- 
ever, he increased Jackson's popular majority of 13,601 in 
1832 to 32,272. 

In White House circles there were some painfully humil- 
iating features in the results, and to none more than to 
Jackson. The people of Tennessee gave White a majority of 
10,000, and even in the President's own precinct. White re- 
ceived 43 votes to 18 for Van Buren. In Georgia, the home of 
the President's Secretary of State, John Forsyth, the people 
turned from the candidate of the Georgian, who was so in- 
timately identified with Van Buren 's political fortunes that 
he was to be retained at the head of the Cabinet through 
the new Administration, to give their vote to White. In 
Tennessee, the result was not unnatural. The President over- 
estimated his strength in assuming that he could persuade the 
people to reject their neighbor and fellow citizen, who had 
served them well, for a New York politician. In Georgia 
the turnover was political, due to the ascendancy of the 
radical State-Rights party, and the strength of the Nullify- 
ing element which Forsyth had courageously fought. 

The result of the congressional elections even more im- 
pressively indicated the drift away from the Jacksonian 
policies. The Democratic majority in the House during the 
Twenty-Fourth Congress, of 46, was reduced in the next 
Congress to a plurality of 2 over the Whigs, with 10 inde- 
pendent members holding the balance of power. Whether 
this was due to a reaction against the Democratic Party, or 
merely measured the loss of the personal prestige of Jackson 
as the candidate, was the problem that gave concern to the 
Democracy. If Van Buren looked forward with any misgiv- 
ings to his Administration, however, he gave no sign; and 



456 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

Jackson, if chagrined over his loss of Tennessee, was master- 
ful in dissimulation. There was as much jubilation in the 
Democratic camp as though the victory had been as decisive 
as that of four years before. When the electoral votes were 
being counted, Clay turned to Van Buren with the observa- 
tion: "It is a cloudy day, sir." "The sun will shine," replied 
the smiling Red Fox, "on the 4th of March, sir." * 

^Perley's Reminiscences, i, 198. 



CHAPTER XVI 

TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 
I 

Jackson returned to the White House after the election in a 
serious physical condition. The exertions of the hot summer, 
the long and wearisome journey, the keen disappointment 
over the loss of Tennessee, and his humihation over his de- 
feat in the Hermitage precinct, had greatly weakened the old 
lion. The return journey to the capital had increased his 
debility, and soon after reaching the White House he was 
driven to his bed by a hemorrhage of the lungs. Ill almost to 
death, no word of sympathy reached him from his foes, and 
from his bed he grimly directed and encouraged the counter- 
attacks with the spirit of the Jackson of New Orleans. In 
his final Message to Congress, he paid tribute to the fidelity 
and integrity of his subordinates, and in ordinary times this 
would have been permitted to pass unchallenged in view of 
his early relinquishment of power. But the times were not 
ordinary. The last short session was to be one of extraor- 
dinary bitterness, with personal altercations commonplace, 
and with statesmen of prominence toying all too lightly with 
their pistols. 

Thus the tribute to the subordinates of the Executive de- 
partments was eagerly seized upon by Henry A. Wise, the 
brilliant and impassioned young Whig of Virginia, as a pre- 
text for a bitter personal attack — one of the most severe, 
satiric, sarcastic philippics to be found in the records of 
Congress from the first session to the present hour. The 
way was paved for it through the presentation of a resolu- 
tion providing for the appointment of a special committee to 
deal with that portion of the Message to which Wise took 
exception. He summoned to his purpose all the accumulated 



458 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

charges of eight years of rancorous party warfare, marched 
them with a mihtant swing before the House, and de- 
manded an investigation to determine, on the eve of the 
stricken President's departure from pubhc hfe, whether he 
had been falsely accused. Had Jackson actually made such 
claims for his subordinates? he asked. No, he had not even 
written the Message because physically unfit. "It comes 
to us and the country reeking with the fumes of the Kitchen 
Cabinet." 

The excited Representatives gathered about the young 
orator were not kept long in doubt as to the particular object 
of his attack. Describing Jackson's electioneering activities 
in Tennessee, Wise dropped the veil: "I am told," he said, 
"that they carried him around like a lion for show, and made 
him roar like a lion. They had catechisms prepared for him, . 
and the negotiations of the mission were conducted by pre- 
concerted questions and answers. A crowd would collect on 
the highway, or in the bar-rooms, and some village politician 
of the party would inquire, 'What think you. General, of 
such a man.'^' In a loud tone, much too stentorian for those 
lungs which are now lacerated, the answer rang, 'He is a 
traitor, sir.' 'There, there,' repeated the demagogues in the 
crowd, ' did you not hear that.? ' ' What think you of another, 
General.?' 'He is a liar, sir.' 'What of another.?' 'He made 
a speech for which he paid a stenographer five dollars.' And 
another was 'on the fence sir, on the fence.* ' But, General, 
what think you of Mr. [the first time that Reuben was ever 
called 'Mister'] Reuben M. Whitney.?' 'There is no just 
cause of complaint against Mr. Whitney, sir; he is as true a 
patriot as ever was; they are all liars who accuse him of aught 
of wrong.'" ^ Thus it was evident from the speech of Wise 
that the attack was aimed at Whitney, erroneously described 
by some historians as a member of the Kitchen Cabinet,^ 

^ Appendix, Cong. Globe, 2d Session, 24th Congress, 274-77. 
* Schouler, iv, 133. 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 459 

but nevertheless entrusted with the public money. Little can 
be said in defense of Jackson's confidence in this man, who 
had been ferociously assailed in the House in the preceding 
spring by Wise and Balie Peyton, a hot-headed Whig from 
Tennessee. With the clever support of the Democrats, the 
resolution was adopted and Wise was made chairman of 
the investigating committee. This investigation, probably in- 
tended merely as a peg on which to hang partisan harangues 
against the stricken President, to whose physical condition 
Wise had made sneering reference, accomplished nothing. 

Before the committee had got fairly started, it struck a 
snag in a personal altercation in the committee room between 
Peyton and Wise on one side, and Whitney on the other, 
resulting in the refusal of the latter to appear again unless 
assured that members of the committee would attend un- 
armed! The balking witness was thereupon cited for con- 
tempt and dragged to the bar of the House; and the clever 
Administration leaders quickly grasped the opportunity to 
divert attention from the main question to the arrogant, 
violent methods of the hot-headed young Whigs in charge. 
Thus Whitney set himself to the task of proving that he 
could not appear before the committee without serious dan- 
ger of assassination. Witnesses to the altercation, on which 
he based his conclusion, were summoned, and a week was 
consumed in the hearing of evidence and the cross-examina- 
tion of witnesses. 

The incident on which Whitney based his fears is graph- 
ically described in the testimony of John Fairfield, a Repre- 
sentative from Maine. ^ The picture painted of the commit- 
tee room scene is not inspiring. Whitney had declined to 
answer a question because of reflections on his integrity by 
Peyton, and it seems that he had gone so far as to scowl at 
the Tennessee Hotspur in explaining his refusal. It was a day 
when honor was a sensitive plant, and Peyton sprang to his 

* Afterward Senator. 



460 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

feet with a promise to "take his life upon the spot." The 
equally fiery Wise, ever ready for a combat, rose to the oc- 
casion, and took his position beside his irate colleague with 
the comment that "this damned insolence is intolerable." 
Encouraged by the open sympathy of Wise, the Tennesseean 
began to meditate aloud, as on the stage, on the enormity of 
the insult, and to mutter that he would not be insulted " by 
a damned thief and robber." His passion, feeding on his hot 
meditations, and his excitement growing greater, he wheeled 
upon Whitney, who, alarmed, sprang to his feet and claimed 
the protection of the committee. "Damn you — damn you ! " 
shouted the white-faced Peyton, "you shan't say a word 
while in this room — if you do I will put you to death." With 
these words he put his hand to his bosom and moved toward 
the object of his fury, and Wise and other members of the 
committee tried to calm the infuriated statesman. "Don't, 
Peyton," cried Wise, "damn him, he is not worth your no- 
tice." Somewhat mollified by this assurance, the insulted 
Representative sank into his chair — but his blood still 
boiled. "Damn him, his eyes are upon me!" he cried as in a 
melodrama. "Damn him, he is looking at me — he shan't 
do it!" By this time it was thought possible to calm the 
nerves of the jumpy Peyton if the witness, whose eyes were 
so offensive, could be removed from the room; and as he 
passed out. Wise requested the committee to remain seated 
to prevent an encounter in the corridor.^ Thus far the im- 
pulsive Virginian appeared in the favorable light of a peace- 
maker, but, finding pleasure in the narration of the manner 
in which the hated minion of the Administration had been 
frightened out of his wits, he began to boast that his pur- 
pose in getting close to Whitney had been to shoot him at the 
slightest provocation, and he was thus drawn into the con- 
troversy along with Peyton. 

Nothing could have been more pleasing to the political 

' Fairfield's testimony, Cong. Globe, 2d Session, 24th Congress. 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 461 

managers of the Administration. Before the galleries, packed 
to hear the eye-witnesses, the two Whigs began to appear 
more and more as quarrelsome, pistol-toting bullies taking 
advantage of their position to browbeat and intimidate an 
unprotected witness. The Democratic press, under the inspi- 
ration of Blair and Kendall, devoted columns to the evidence, 
and sentiment was turned against the Whig leaders until 
they began to complain that they, and not Whitney, were 
apparently at the bar. "Sir," Wise declared, "it is I who am 
on trial and not Reuben M. Whitney. I have no doubt of the 
contrivance to make this issue before the country. ... I wish 
to know, sir, if there are not other officers of the Government 
who have issued the order that the power of this House, and 
the Executive power of the country, are both to be brought 
to bear upon two humble and inexperienced members of the 
House. Sir, I have felt it." 

The affair had now worked around to the distinct advan- 
tage of the Administration, and Wise and Peyton, and not 
Jackson, were in distress. The psychological hour had struck 
to end the farce. The motion to dismiss Whitney was made 
and carried, and when the name of Wise was called, he sol- 
emnly rose: 

"Mr. Speaker," he said, "I shall not vote until I ascertain 
whether I am discharged from prosecution or not." 

As the smiling House offered no information, his name is 
not recorded among those voting. Thus the one offensive 
against Jackson, launched by his enemies on the eve of his 
relinquishment of power, ended in a riproaring farce. 

n 

In the Senate the offensive was taken by Jackson's sup- 
porters when Benton served notice that he would demand a 
vote on his motion to expunge the vote of censure from the 
records. Much water had passed over the dam since the 
persistent Missourian had first offered his resolution. With 



462 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the aid of the Kitchen Cabinet, he had made it a national 
issue. The fight had been carried into the States of the Sena- 
tors who had voted for the censure, and, in numerous in- 
stances, the oflPending member had either been defeated for 
reelection, or the legislature had been prevailed upon to in- 
struct him to vote to expunge. One of the opponents of the 
Benton resolution had died and been succeeded by a Jackson 
sympathizer. Through defeat, or resignations forced by in- 
structions from legislatures, enemies had given place to 
friends from Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, Illi- 
nois, Mississippi, and Virginia. New Senators, friends of 
Jackson, had entered from the new States of Arkansas and 
Michigan. A private poll convinced Benton that the triumph 
was at hand, all the sweeter because coming on the eve of 
Jackson's retirement. The day after Christmas he reintro- 
duced his original resolution, and on January 12th supported 
it in a speech laudatory of Jackson — a paean of anticipated 
triumph. The old man, always a trifle pompous and stilted 
in his style, was never more so, but in his most extravagant 
praise he unquestionably spoke the language of his heart. 
Beginning by recalling the discouraging circumstances under 
which he first offered his resolution, he gloatingly declared 
that the Opposition had become "more and more odious to 
the public mind and musters now but a slender phalanx of 
friends." The people had been passing on the censure; had 
passed upon it in the triumph of Van Buren, who had pub- 
licly proclaimed his adherence to the plans of Benton. He 
would not rehash the constitutional arguments. The debate 
had ended and the verdict had been rendered, but the occa- 
sion called for some reference to the achievements and tri- 
umphs of the Administration. Then he hastily sketched its 
battles, claiming in the aftermath of each the vindication of 
events — the destruction of the Bank, the removal of the de- 
posits, the triumphant termination of the controversy with 
the French. 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 463 



<t 



^And now, sir," he concluded, as we may imagine with his 
chest thrown out, "I finish the task which, three years ago, 
I imposed upon myself. Solitary and alone, and amidst the 
taunts and jeers of my opponents, I put this ball in motion. 
The people have taken it up and rolled it forward, and I am 
no longer anything but a unit in the vast mass which now 
propels it. In the name of that mass, I speak. I demand the 
execution of the edict of the people; I demand the expurga- 
tion of that sentence which the voice of a few Senators and 
the power of their confederate, the Bank of the United 
States, has caused to be placed upon the journal of the Sen- 
ate, and which the voice of millions of freemen has ordered to 
be expunged from it." 

Thus spoke the champion of Jackson in the tones and 
manner of a conqueror. As he resumed his seat, John J. 
Crittenden of Kentucky rose to protest against the "party 
desecration" of the record, and after a few words from Sena- 
tor Dana, who favored the expunging record, the Senate 
adjourned. On the following day some of the great orators 
of the Opposition were put forward to oppose the resolution. 

We are told by an eye-witness that the eloquent Preston 
"spoke in a strain of eloquence inspired by his feelings of 
great aversion." ^ If Benton was theatrical, as has been 
justly charged by historians, the Whigs were even more so, 
as we shall see. Beginning with great solemnity, and de- 
scribing his shock and sorrow, Preston proceeded: 

"Execution is demanded — aye, sir, the executioners are 
here with ready hands. Exercise your function, gentlemen. . . . 
The axe is in your hand — perform that which is so loudly 
called for. Execution, sir, of what, of whom.^^ Is the axe 
aimed at men who voted for the resolution you are about to 
expunge.? Is it us you strike at.'^ If so, . . . in God's name let 
the blow come, and as the fatal edge fell upon my neck, I 
would declare with honest sincerity that I would rather be 

* Sargent's Public Men and Events, i, 334. 



464 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

the criminal of 1834 than the executioner of 1837.'* More: 
the names of the Senators refusing to expunge would in the 
future "be familiar as household words" and be "taught to 
children as the names of Washington and Adams and Han- 
cock and Lee and Lafayette are now taught to our children." 

A moment later the orator's pensive melancholy had 
turned to rage. 

"Why not expunge those who made the record.^" he 
thundered, forgetting how many had been "expunged." "If 
the proceedings had a guilt so monstrous as to render neces- 
sary this novel and extraordinary course, the men themselves 
who perpetrated the deed — it is they who should be ex- 
punged. Men who entered so foul a page upon the journal 
cannot be worthy of a seat here. Remove us! Turn us out! 
Expel us from the Senate! Would to God you could! Call 
in the pretorian guard ! Take us — apprehend us — march 
us off!" 1 

After Rives and Niles had spoken in support of the reso- 
lution, Calhoun mournfully rose, and with funereal sadness, 
not unmixed with scorn, pointed out the resemblance of the 
proceedings to the degenerate days of Rome. "But why do 
I waste my breath.^^" he asked, in conclusion. "I know it is 
all utterly vain. The day is gone; night approaches, and 
night is suitable to the dark deed we meditate. There is a 
sort of destiny in this thing. The act must be performed; and 
it is an act that will tell on the political historj^ of this country 
forever. ... It is a melancholy evidence of a broken spirit, 
ready to bow at the feet of power. The former act ^ was such 
a one as might have been perpetrated in the days of Pompey 
and Csesar; but an act like this could never have been con- 
summated by a Roman Senate until the times of Caligula 
and Nero." 
- After Calhoun concluded, unsuccessful efforts to adjourn 

^ Appendix, Cong. Globe, 2d Session, 24th Congress, 135. 
' Removal of deposits. 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 465 

were made, until Clay announced his intention to speak at 
length, and his request for delay was granted. Had his sup- 
porters realized how far from absolute certainty of success 
Benton felt, they would have favored, instead of fought, an 
adjournment. The following day was Saturday, and a care- 
ful poll disclosed the disconcerting diversity of opinion as to 
details which threatened the success of the project, and Ben- 
ton gladly agreed to a postponement of the discussion until 
Monday, That night the then famous restaurant of Boulan- 
ger found all the Jacksonian Senators seated about the ban- 
quet board. The clever host had loaded the table with his 
choicest offerings, and as soon as the statesmen had reached 
the mellow, accommodating mood, they settled down to the 
real purpose of the feast. Realizing that he lacked the deft- 
ness and finesse required for ironing out all differences as 
to details, Benton had assigned the work of conciliation to 
Silas Wright, Allen of Ohio, and Linn of Missouri. Even so, 
it "required all the moderation, tact, and skill of the prime 
movers to obtain and maintain the union upon details, on 
the success of which the measure depended." ^ But when, 
at midnight, the Senators dispersed, all conflicting views had 
been reconciled, and for the first time an actual majority was 
pledged to a single programme. It was decided to call the reso- 
lution up on Monday, and to keep it constantly before the 
Senate, without adjournment, until the "deed" was done. 

To prevent any of his flock from wandering afield in search 
of refreshments, Benton had made ample preparations, 
and a tourist, wandering into Benton's committee room at 
four o'clock on Monday afternoon, would have assumed, in 
view of the vast quantities of cold ham, turkey, rounds of 
beef, pickles, wines, and coffee, that he had stumbled into 
a senatorial cafe. That day, Clay appeared in the Senate os- 
tentatiously garbed in black as though in mourning for the 
murdered Constitution. So ugly was his mood that he even 

1 Thirty Years' View, i. 727. 



466 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

refused snuff offered by a Democratic Senator he knew was 
going to vote to expunge. The galleries were packed to wit- 
ness the drama, or melodrama, and impatiently sat through 
the preliminary work of the Senate. At length the hour came 
for the consideration of the resolution, and all eyes turned to 
Clay, who thoroughly enjoyed his role in the play. As his 
tall form slowly rose, there was a rustling in the galleries 
as the spectators shifted their position to get a better view of 
the great enemy of Jackson. On his feet, he stood a moment 
in silence, as though weighed down by the importance of his 
task, if not by its hopelessness. Then he began in subdued 
tones, albeit his silvery voice was heard distinctly over the 
chamber. Such a hardened observer of historical incidents 
as Sargent describes the scene as "grand, impressive, and 
imposing," and "even solemn," as though "some terrible rite 
was to be performed, some bloody sacrifice to be made upon 
the altar of Moloch." ^ 

"What object .?*" he demanded. Was it necessary because 
of the President.? "In one hand," he continued, "he holds 
the purse, and in the other he brandishes the sword of the 
country. Myriads of dependents and partisans, scattered 
all over the land, are ever ready to sing hosannas to him, and 
to laud to the skies whatever he does. He has swept over the 
Government during the last eight years like a tropical tor- 
nado. Every department exhibits traces of the ravages of the 
storm. . . . What object of his ambition is unsatisfied? When, 
disabled from age any longer to hold the scepter of power, he 
designates his successor, and transmits it to his favorite, 
what more does he want? Must we blot, deface, and muti- 
late the records of the country, to punish the presumptuous- 
ness of expressing any opinion contrary to his own? 

"What object? " demanded Clay. "Do you intend to thrust 
your hands into our hearts and pluck out the deeply rooted 
convictions which are there? Or is it your design merely to 

' Sargent describes Clay's manner and the effect. Public Men and Events, i, 337-39. 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 467 

stigmatize us? Standing securely upon our conscious recti- 
tude, and bearing aloft the Constitution of our country, 
your puny efforts are impotent ; and we defy all your power. 

"What object?" reiterated the orator. "To please the 
President? He would reject, with scorn and contempt as un- 
worthy of his fame, your black scratches and your baby lines 
in the fair records of his country. Black lines. Black lines. . . . 
And hereafter, when we shall lose the forms of our free insti- 
tutions, all that now remain to us, some future American 
monarch, in gratitude to those by whose means he has been 
enabled, upon the ruins of civil liberty, to erect a throne, and 
to commemorate especially this expunging resolution, may 
institute a new order of knighthood, and confer on it the 
appropriate name of the 'Knights of the Black Lines.'" 

But why continue, he inquired, as he closed his fierce 
philippic. "Proceed then with your noble work. . . . And 
when you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and 
tell them what glorious honors you have achieved for our 
common country. Tell them that you have extinguished 
one of the brightest and purest lights that ever burned on 
the altar of civil liberty. Tell them that you have silenced 
one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defense 
of the Constitution, and bravely spiked the cannon. Tell 
them that henceforth, no matter what daring or outrageous 
act any President may perform, you have forever hermet- 
ically sealed the mouth of the Senate. Tell them that he may 
fearlessly assume what powers he pleases, snatch from its 
lawful custody the public purse, and command a military 
detachment to enter the halls of the Capitol, overawe 
Congress, trample down the Constitution, and raze every 
bulwark of freedom ; but that the Senate must stand mute, 
in silent submission, and not dare to raise its opposing 
voice." 

Such the theatrical strain of a speech which the school- 
boys of well-regulated Whig families were to declaim for the 



468 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

delight of their elders for a generation, and to call forth 
a fulsome note from the sober-minded Kent. 

As Clay sat down, James Buchanan rose to reply, admit- 
ting that it was the part of prudence to remain silent after 
the Whig orator had "enchanted the attention of his audi- 
ence." Fluent, logical, if not eloquent, he followed Clay's 
speech point by point, rehashing with him the Bank con- 
troversy — leading up to the removal of the deposits and 
the vote of censure — defending Jackson at every step. If 
Jackson's act was one of tyranny, unconstitutional, aimed 
at civil liberty, why, he demanded, "had the Whigs merely 
censured him without giving him the opportunity to reply? 
Why had they not done their duty and instituted impeach- 
ment proceedings .f* True, they insisted that they had not 
imputed any criminal motive to the President — " 

Clay was instantly on his feet, hotly insisting that "per- 
sonally he had never acquitted the President of improper 
intentions." To which the courtly Buchanan replied with a 
compliment to the Kentuckian's "frank and manly nature," 
and passed on. 

The Whigs now attempted to adjourn, but Benton's drilled 
forces were on hand to vote down Bayard's motion, and the 
debate proceeded. Other speakers followed, men of lesser 
light, while the Senators themselves, satiated with the argu- 
ments, began to pass out in twos and threes to regale and 
refresh themselves in Benton's room. Such of the Whigs as 
were not too bitter were cordially invited to partake of the 
feast, and some accepted. Clay sent some of his friends to 
the committee room to ascertain the nature of the attraction, 
and the emissaries lingered too long over the meat, and espe- 
cially the drink, and he became furious. With the coming of 
night the curious packed the corridors and lobbies, and the 
great chandelier which lighted the little chamber shed its 
glow on the gay dresses of the ladies of fashion, many of 
whom had been admitted to the floor. 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 469 

As the hour grew late, and there was a pause in the 
debate, the eyes of all were fixed on Webster, who sat gloom- 
ily in his seat. He glanced around to see if others proposed 
to speak, then rose to make the final protest. An eye-witness 
tells us that "his dark visage assumed a darker hue"; 
that "his deep-toned voice seemed almost sepulchral." ^ As 
was his custom, he spoke with more moderation than 
Clay, Calhoun, or Preston, and was all the more impres- 
sive on that account. He refrained from hysterical denun- 
ciations, and from comparisons with the degenerate days 
of Rome. "But," he said, "we make up our minds to be- 
hold the spectacle which is to ensue. We collect ourselves 
to look on in silence while a scene is exhibited which, if 
we do not regard it as a ruthless violation of a sacred in- 
strument, would appear to us to be but little elevated above 
the character of a contemptible farce. This scene we shall 
behold, and hundreds of American citizens — as many as 
may crowd into these lobbies and galleries — will behold it 
also — with what feelings I do not undertake to say." 

Reiterating, then, his protest, he concluded: "Having 
made this protest, our duty is performed. We rescue our own 
names, characters, and honor from all participation in this 
matter; and whatever the wayward character of the times, 
the headlong and plunging spirit of party devotion, or the 
fear or the love of power, may have been able to bring about 
elsewhere, we desire to thank God that we have not, as yet, 
overcome the love of liberty, fidelity to true republican 
principles, and a sacred regard for the Constitution, in that 
State whose soil was drenched to a mire by the first and best 
blood of the Revolution." 

While Webster was speaking, two Whig Senators, realizing 
that the contest had degenerated into a trial of nerves and 
muscle, went to Benton with the suggestion that nothing 
could be gained by delaying the vote.^ When no one rose to 

*^ Sargent, Public Men and Events i, 341. ^ Thirty Years' View, i, 730. 



470 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

continue the argument at the conclusion, there was a moment 
of silence and then the cry of "Question " rose. The roll was 
called, with forty-three Senators in their seats, five absent, 
and the resolution was passed by a vote of 24 to 19. 

Benton instantly demanded the execution of the order of 
the Senate. While the clerk was out to get the original jour- 
nal, Benton, in perfect ecstasy, ostentatiously congratulated 
persons in the lower gallery, until the glowering countenance 
of Balie Peyton warned him of a possible explosion.^ But 
the Tennessee firebrand was not the only person in the gal- 
lery, or, for that matter, on the floor, with a deadly hate of 
Benton in the heart. The galleries remained true to the Bank 
and Biddle, and some of the Senators, having freely indulged 
themselves, were in a quarrelsome mood. Fear was enter- 
tained for Benton's life by some of his friends, including his 
wife. Just previous to the vote. Senator Linn had brought in 
pistols for the defense, if required, and Mrs. Benton, seriously 
alarmed, took her place by her husband's side on the floor. 
As the clerk returned with the record, the defeated states- 
men, pretending to a patriotism that could not look upon the 
"deed," filed out of the chamber — all but Hugh Lawson 
White who never deserted his post. As the President pro tern. 
announced that the "deed" was done, the hitherto sullen and 
silent gallery broke into groans, hisses, imprecations. En- 
raged and excited, Benton sprang to his feet with the demand 
that the " ruffians " that caused the disturbance be appre- 
hended and brought to the bar. "I hope the sergeant-at-arms 
will be directed to enter the gallery, and seize the ruffians. . . . 
Let him seize the Bank ruffians. I hope they will not be suf- 
fered to insult the Senate as they did when it was under the 
power of the Bank of the United States when ruflSans, with 
arms upon them, insulted us with impunity. . . . Here is one 
just above me that may easily be identified — the Bank 
ruflSans!" 

* Wise, Seven Decades oj the Union, 143. 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS ; 471 

Thus the ringleader was dragged to the bar. But here was 
a diversion that had not entered into the agreement as to de- 
tails at Boulanger's on Saturday night, and the wrangle that 
followed ended in the discharge of the culprit from custody. 
As the vote to discharge was announced, the person in cus- 
tody demanded to be heard. "Begone!" cried King, in the 
chair — and the incident was closed. But Benton's blood 
was hot, and on leaving the Capitol he encountered Clay, 
whom he suspected of having instigated the gallery dis- 
turbance, and a bitter altercation resulted. But after the two 
men, personally not unfriendly and related by marriage, had 
exercised their vituperative vocabulary, Benton insisted on 
seeing Clay home, and did not leave until three in the morn- 
ing when Clay had sought his couch. Thus ended a dramatic 
episode — so dramatic and historic that on the following 
morning Webster requested Henry A. Wise to prepare a de- 
scription which was afterwards given in an address at 
Norfolk.! 

The triumph, we may be sure, was sweet to the stricken 
veteran in the White House. Within a week he invited all 
his senatorial friends and their wives to an elaborate dinner. 
Hovering on the verge of the grave, he dragged himself from 
his bed to greet his guests, accompanied them to the dining- 
room, seated Benton in his place at the head of the table, and 
retired to his couch, while the celebration below continued 
until a late hour. 

m 

The last days of Jackson in the White House could not 
have been other than days of joyous thanksgiving. Entering 
the White House the most popular of all Americans, eight 
years of the most bitter controversies in the Nation's history 
had only tended to strengthen the affections of the people. 
Through the greater part of his Presidency he had been con- 
* Wise, Seven Decades of the Union, 144. 



472 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

stantly harassed by a hostile Senate, and his enemies had 
been defeated or otherwise retired, until now both branches 
of the Congress were devoted to his pohcies. His most 
powerful enemies had been humiliated. The prize of the 
Presidency dangling before Calhoun in the beginning was 
now forever beyond his reach. Clay had been defeated in his 
ambition and shamefully set aside by his ungrateful party. 
The man of his own choice had been elected to succeed him, 
and the hated censure of the Senate had been expunged by 
the order of the people. Few Presidents have ever departed 
from the scene of their power with more for which to be grate- 
ful and less to regret. 

But the old man had run his race and been surfeited with 
the sweets of personal triumphs, and was eager to return 
to the calm of his beloved Hermitage, among his old and 
cherished friends and faitliful slaves, and near to the tomb 
of his idolized Rachel. By sheer will power he had fought 
back the specter which had hovered by his sick-bed, to this 
end. Confined to his room most of the time, debilitated by 
age and disease, the old man's mind was not free from anxi- 
eties for the future of his country. He knew too well the tem- 
per of public men, and comprehended too keenly the delicate 
problems pressing for solution, not to know that there were 
dangers ahead. It was his desire to give some parting 
advice to the people in his final Message, but he was per- 
suaded to convey his last word in the form of a "Farewell," 
like Washington. To the preparation of this paper he de- 
voted much time and thought during the last two months, 
and, while he had the assistance of Roger B. Taney in the 
phrasing of his thoughts, all the ideas, and much of the lan- 
guage, originated with him. Strangely enough, the "Fare- 
well " of Jackson is scarcely known, and some historians are 
prone to smile upon it as an unworthy imitation of the Wash- 
ington paper. It was nothing of the sort. It smacks, in 
large part, of prophecy. The man who wrote it saw, in fancy, 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 473 

the swaying columns of the blue and gray, and he strove to 
avert the clash. The old hero of the NuHification fight, feeble 
and sick, bending over his desk in the White House of 1837, 
was writing and pleading in the spirit of the Lincoln of 1861 
as he wrote his touching inaugural appeal for peace. ^ Hav- 
ing finished his "Farewell," to be given out on the day of 
leaving ofiice, the old man impatiently awaited his release. 
His friends, he knew, would not suffer by the change. The 
Jackson Cabinet was to be continued, with the exception of 
Cass, who was to be sent to France, thus making way for 
Joel Poinsett, who had been Jackson's right hand in the 
Nullification struggle. 

On Washington's birthday he received the public in a 
farewell reception, famous because of the mammoth cheese 
donated by admirers, greater in circumference than a hogs- 
head. Two men with knives made from saw blades cut into 
the enormous mass, giving each guest a piece weighing from 
two to three pounds. Some, who had provided themselves 
with paper, wrapped their portion and bore it away as a 
souvenir; others, not so thoughtful, carried theirs in their 
hands. Much of it crumbled in the hands of the bearers and 
was trampled on the floor. It was Jackson's farewell, and 
thousands pushed their way into the White House, and, after 
getting their portion of the cheese, pressed on into the Blue 
Room, where the President, much too feeble to stand, re- 
ceived and greeted his visitors from his chair. Beside him 
stood the cordial Mrs. Donelson, while just behind him Mar- 
tin Van Buren greeted all with a smile and a courtly bow.^ 

IV 

The Jackson of the White House would have commanded 
attention in any assembly, even to the last. More than six 
feet in height and slender to attenuation, his limbs long and 

^ Richardson, Messages and Papers. 

2 Wilson, Washington the Capital City, i, 328. 



47t PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

straight, and his shoulders slightly stooped, he carried him- 
self proudly, and not without grace. His white hair stood 
erect, giving a full view of a forehead that indicated intel- 
lectual power. His eyes, deep-set, clear but small, were 
blue in color and noticeably penetrating, and the great spec- 
tacles he wore accentuated their boring quality. These eyes, 
flashing with the fierceness of the fight, could easily melt, in 
tenderness, to tears. His strong cheek-bones and lantern 
jaws denoted the warrior. His strongly chiseled chin and 
firm mouth told of his inflexibility. His chest was flat, and 
indicated his most pronounced physical weakness. Seen 
upon his walks about Washington, wearing his high white 
beaver hat, with his widower's weed, and carrying a stout 
cane adorned with a silken tassel, he looked the part of the 
patriarch who could either bestow a benediction or a blow. 
Throughout his two terms his health was wretched, and time 
and again, stricken with disease, his death had seemed only 
a matter of days, but the iron will prevailed over the failing 
flesh. His hair grew whiter. The lines in his face deepened. 
His step lost some of its spring. He was forced to abandon 
his long walks and the pleasures of the saddle, and remain 
more and more in the White House. But the eye retained its 
fire, his voice its fervor, and his spirit never flagged. In 
moments of relaxation, toward the close, there was a softened 
expression, but in his fighting moments he differed little from 
the grim old man who entered the mansion of the Presidents 
as Adams took his departure. '; 

The libels of his enemies of the Whig aristocracy notwith- 
standing, he had not been unworthy, socially, of the stately 
traditions of his environment, and had impressed all visitors 
with his fine courtes3% courtliness, ability, and graciousness.^ 
Never before or afterwards were there such incongruous 

' Mrs. Wharton, Social Life of the Republic, 261; Wise, Seven Decades of the 
Union. 81; Seward, Autobiographij, i, 278; Frederick Seward, Reminiscences of a 
War-Time Statesman and Diplomat, 17; Quincy, Figures of the Past; Powers, Im- 
pressions of America. • j 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 475 

crowds at the receptions, but this disclosed less the taste of 
the master of the Mansion than his political principles; and 
his dinners in tone and taste commanded the admiration of 
his enemies.^ These receptions and dinners had drawn heav- 
ily on his resources, and toward the close left him seriously 
embarrassed. He himself could have lived on monastic fare. 
A weak stomach forced him to eat sparingly, and he often 
dined on bread, milk, and vegetables; but there were always 
guests at the table, which was invariably ladened as for a 
feast. ^ 

Perhaps it was not without regret that he passed through 
the rooms of the historic house in those last days, for he 
had converted the White House into a home, and it was 
rich in memories of the sort that tug at the heart. Fond of 
his family, and especially of the young women members, 
this "home" had been the scene of several marriages and 
christenings. The beautiful Emily Donelson, the wife of his 
secretary and niece, the mistress of the mansion, had presided 
with grace and dignity and brightened the days and nights. 
In a physical sense she was an exquisite woman, of medium 
height, her figure slender and symmetrical, her hands and 
feet as tiny as a child's. Her hair and eyes were a dark brown, 
her lips beautifully moulded, her complexion fair. Many 
found in her a striking resemblance to Mary, Queen of Scots, 
as she appears in her pictures. Her taste in dress was beyond 
reproach, and soon after entering the White House her toi- 
lette was "the envy And admiration of the fashionable 
circles." ^ Her judgment in social matters was infallible, and 
Jackson depended upon her advice. "You know best, my 
dear, do as you please," was his only suggestion when deli- 
cate problems were submitted to him. Fond of society, vi- 
vacious, dignified, and always gracious, she not only com- 

» Hone's Diary, March 15, 1832; Life and Letters of Story, ii, 117. 
^ Letter of John Fairfield, quoted from manuscript by Professor Bassett in hia 
Life of Jackson. 

* Holloway, Ladies of the While House. 



476 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

manded admiration, but affection. An excellent conversa- 
tionalist, she possessed the art, so seldom found in good 
talkers, of being an ingratiating listener. In contact with 
the brightest minds of the capital, she lost nothing by the 
comparison. "Madame, you dance with the grace of a Pa- 
risian," remarked a condescending foreign minister. "I can 
hardly realize that you were born in Tennessee." " Count," 
she retorted, "you forget that grace is a cosmopolite, and, 
like a wild flower, is much oftener found in the woods than 
in the streets of a city." During her days in the White House 
her four children were born, and Jackson, who was delighted 
to have childhood about him, took a keen interest in their 
christenings. He was godfather for two. Van Buren for one, 
and Polk — all Presidents — for the other. 

Another of the White House women was Sarah Yorke 
Jackson, daughter of Peter Yorke, of Philadelphia, and wife 
of another nephew. She was much younger than Mrs. Don el- 
son, having been married but a short time before the inau- 
guration, but Jackson, fearing some misunderstanding as 
to precedence, called them together and announced his will. 
"You, my dear," he said to Mrs. Jackson, "are mistress of 
the Hermitage, and Emily is hostess of the White House." 
The arrangement was satisfactory to both, and no misunder- 
standings marred their relations. Mrs. Jackson was happily 
indifferent to social prestige, but in the spirit of helpfulness 
did her part. Highly accomplished and beautiful, graceful, 
and possessed of wonderful poise in one so young, she was 
intensely devoted to Jackson, and the old man reciprocated 
the affection in full measure. 

Usually, in the evening, Jackson gathered his family about 
him, and if Senators, diplomats, or Cabinet Ministers ap- 
peared, they were drawn into the family circle. If the busi- 
ness which brought them happened to be of importance, he 
would, perhaps, draw them into a distant part of the simply 
furnished parlor which was lighted from above by a chande- 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS 477 

lier. In the winter the fire blazed in the grate, and, arranging 
their chairs about the fireplace, the women appHed them- 
selves to their sewing while gossiping of the events of the day. 
Here would be found Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Donelson, per- 
haps Mrs, Livingston, possibly Mrs. McLane, or some other 
woman of the White House circle. Playing about the room 
would be five or six children in irreverent disregard of the old 
man in the long loose coat, seated in an armchair, smoking 
his long reed-stem pipe with a red clay bowl. Mayhap Liv- 
ingston or Van Buren or Forsyth would be reading him an 
important dispatch from a foreign minister, while the chil- 
dren, with their shouts and screams, would all but drown the 
voice of the visitor. Nothing disturbed by the clamor, the 
old man would bend forward and listen more intently. Per- 
haps he would wave his long-stemmed pipe toward the row- 
dies, with an apologetic smile. But never a cross word. 

The hour for retirement would come. The children would 
withdraw and be tucked in their beds. The President would 
go to his room. There he would sit awhile at the table, and, 
by the light of a single candle, would read a chapter from the 
Bible that had belonged to Rachel, and then gaze awhile 
at her picture propped up before him. The light would be 
snuffed. The old man would retire, and the negro bodyguard 
would lie down on the floor and join his master in sleep. Sud- 
denly a child's cry would penetrate the President's chamber, 
and he would awaken — and listen. Then he would get up, 
go to the room of the little one, and, brushing objections 
aside, take it in his arms and walk the floor with it until it 
slept. This was not an unusual occurrence.^ 

After breakfasting in the morning, Jackson would go to his 
office, on the second floor, and, lighting his pipe, would settle 
down to the routine work of the day. Bookshelves lined the 
room. Busts of the President, the work of various sculptors, 

^ Holloway, Ladies of the White House, and Mary Crawford, Romantic Days of the 
Young Republic, 22-23. 



478 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

and a number of portraits, all by Earle, looked upon the orig- 
inal from shelves and tables. There flocked the politicians, 
Lewis with a report, Blair with a leader, Kendall with a pro- 
gramme. There he planned and fought his battles with the 
politicians, but when evening came he looked forward to 
the joys of domesticity, or the diversions of the company of 
women upon whom he looked "with the most romantic, pure, 
and poetic devotion.^ The accomplished Mrs. Livingston 
would enliven him with her vivacious conversation on all 
manner of topics, her daughter Cora would delight him with 
her animation and wit, and his eyes would fill when Mrs. 
Philip Hamilton, daughter of McLane, responded to his never- 
failing invitation to play and sing his favorite song from 
Burns. Mrs. McLane, an attractive and entertaining chat- 
terbox, with interested motives for attempting to fascinate 
the old warrior, was always a welcome diversion, and Mrs. 
Rives, the stately wife of the Virginia Senator; Mrs. Macomb, 
wife of the General; and Sallie Coles Stevenson, who re- 
sembled Mrs. Livingston in intelligence and tact, were fre- 
quent guests. These had given to the White House some- 
thing of the charm of the Hermitage; but at times, in the 
bitterness of the continual struggle, when the old man grew 
weary of the bauble of power, and felt his faith in mankind 
slipping, and homesickness for the Hermitage possessing him, 
he had often laid aside the cares of state, turned his back 
upon the scene of his struggle and the house of his triumphs, 
and walked across the Avenue to the home of the Blairs, 
where he knew he could find a haven of rest. There he knew 
he could appear, not as the head of the State, but as Andrew 
Jackson of the Hermitage. It became his second home. There 
he could forget his enemies, and, in the homey atmosphere 
of a house pervaded by the personality of a sincere and unaf- 
fected woman, he could revive his fainting spirits. 

But he was surfeited with triumphs, and the Hermitage 

' Wise, Seven Decades of the Union. 



TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS , 479 

called him home to the tomb of Rachel. The twilight was 
closing in upon him. He knew it was time to go. 

V 

The dawn of inauguration day found him so ill and debili- 
tated that he should have remained in bed, but the soldier 
spirit of the man refused to yield to the promptings of the 
flesh. He was up early, doing his full part. The day was ideal 
— as Van Buren had promised Clay. The clear sky, the 
bright, cheery sunshine, the balmy air could not have been 
better ordered for the distinguished invalid. A great throng 
stretched back from the east front of the Capitol to witness 
the historic scene, and the eastern windows were packed with 
the more favored spectators. It was plainly to be seen from 
the attitude of the multitude that the real reverence and en- 
thusiasm was for the leader whose race was run, rather than 
for his successor. "For once," observed Benton, "the rising 
was eclipsed by the setting sun." The old man, feeble and 
bowed, sat listening to the inaugural address of the man he 
had elevated to the highest office in the world. Van Buren 
concluded. Jackson rose and began slowly to descend the 
steps of the portico to his carriage which was waiting to con- 
vey him back to the White House. At that moment, the 
pent-up feelings of the crowd burst forth in cheers and ac- 
clamations. "It was the acclaim of posterity breaking from 
the bosom of contemporaries," wrote Benton. The old man, 
deeply touched to tenderness and humility, acknowledged 
his appreciation by mute signs. From one of the upper win- 
dows a rough fighting man witnessed the scene with an emo- 
tion he had never felt before. From thence, Benton looked 
down upon the close of a memorable "reign," of which he 
was to become the historian as he had been its defender. 

That night Jackson slept as usual in the White House as 
the guest of President Van Buren, who insisted that he re- 
main in his old quarters until in May or June the trip back 



480 PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD 

to the Hermitage could be made in greater comfort, but the 
journey held no terrors for the homesick statesman. The fol- 
lowing afternoon he walked across the Avenue to the home 
of Frank Blair for a final visit with the family within whose 
bosom he had passed many joyous hours during the eight 
years of storm and stress. A little later, Benton called with 
William Allen, then Senator from Ohio, and for many years 
the world knew nothing of the nature of that final conference. 
Benton himself was mysteriously silent, nor did he furnish 
any enlightenment in his great history of the "Thirty Years." 
But long after most of the participants in the politics of that 
day were mouldering in the grave, Blair and Allen told the 
story to one of the President's biographers. Jackson talked, 
and the others listened. He told them of his two principal 
regrets — that he had never had an opportunity to shoot 
Clay or to hang Calhoun. He had no regrets because of his 
crushing of the Bank, nor because of his encouragement of 
the spoils system. But he left office feeling that his work 
would have been more nearly completed if Texas had been 
annexed and the Oregon boundary dispute had been settled 
at fifty-four-forty. To his loyal supporters he left one admo- 
nition that afternoon: 

"Of all things, never once take your eyes off Texas, and 
never let go of fifty-four-forty." 

The following day witnessed his departure. He took wuth 
him the picture of Rachel which had been upon his desk 
through his eight years of trial, her Bible, to which he had 
been devoted, her protege Earle, the artist, who was to re- 
main with him at the Hermitage, and to be buried in its 
peaceful shade. 

Thus ended the reign of Andrew Jackson, 



THE END 



BOOKS, PAPERS, AND MANUSCRIPTS 
CITED AND CONSULTED 



BOOKS, PAPERS, AND MANUSCRIPTS 
CITED AND CONSULTED 

Abdy, Edward S., Journal of a Tour of the United States. 3 vols. London, 
1835. 

Adams, John Quincy, Memoirs of, ed. by C. F. Adams. 12 vols. Phila- 
delphia, 1876. 

Ambler, Charles Henry, Thomas Ritchie: A Study of Virginia Politics. 
Richmond, 1913. 

Anonymous, Life of Levns Cass. Detroit, 1848. 

Baber, George, The Blairs of Kentucky. Register Kentucky Historical 
Society, xiv. 

Bassett, John Spencer, Life of Andrew Jackson. 2 vols. New York, 
1911. 

Bennett, James Gordon. See Isaac C. Pray. 

Benton, Thomas H., Thirty Years' View, or a History of the Working of the 
American Government from 1820 to 1850. New York, 1861. See Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. 

Beveridge, Albert J., Life of John Marshall. 4 vols. Boston, 1916-19. 

Biddle, Nicholas. See Reginald C. McGrane. 

BiNNEY, C. N., Life of Horace Binney. Philadelphia, 1903. 

BiNNEY, Horace. See C. N. Binney. 

Blair, Gist, The Annals of Silver Springs. Columbian Historical Society, 

XXI. 

Bradley, Cyrus P., Life of Isaac Hill. Concord, 1835. 

Branch, John. See Marshall de Lancey Haywood. 

Buchanan, James. See John Bassett Moore. 

BuELL, Augustus C, Life of Andrew Jackson. 2 vols. New York, 1904. 

Butler, William Allen, A Retrospect of Forty Years. New York, 1911. 

Calhoun, John. See John Stilwell Jenkins, H. von Hoist, Richard K. 
Cralle. 

Cass, Lewis. See Andrew C. McLaughlin, W. L. G. Smith, William T. 
Young, Anonymous. 

Catterall, Ralph C. H., The Second Bank of the United States. Univer- 
sity of Chicago, 1903. 

Clay, Henry. See Calvin Colton, Carl Schurz, Joseph M. Rogers. 

Clayton, John M. See Joseph P. Comegys. 

Colton, Calvin, editor. Works of Henry Clay. 10 vols. New York, 1904. 

Comegys, Joseph P., Memoir of John M. Clayton. Wilmington, 1882. Pa- 
pers, Historical Society of Delaware, vol. 4. 



484 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Crallk, Richard K., editor, Works of John C. Calhoun. 6 vols. New 

York, 1883. 
Crawford, Mary C, Romantic Days of the Early Republic. Boston, 1912. 
Crawford, William H. See J. E. D. Shipp. 
Crockett, Davy, Life of Martin Van Buren. Philadelphia, 1835. 
Curtis, George Ticknor, Life of Daniel Webster. 2 vols. New York, 1870. 

X Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. 2 vols. 
New York, 1881. 

Ellet, E. F., Court Circles of the Republic. Hartford, 1869. 

Fisher, Sidney George, The Real Daniel Webster. Philadelphia, 1911. 
Fiske, John, Historical and Political Essays. 2 vols. New York, 1902. 
Foote, Henry S., A Casket of Reminiscences. Washington, 1874. 
Forsyth, John, manuscript letters. 
Foster, John W., A Century of American Diplomacy. Boston, 1901. 

Hale, Edward Everett, Memories of a Hundred Years. 2 vols. New 

York, 1902. 
Hamilton, James, Reminiscences of Hamilton, or Men and Events at Home 

and Abroad During Three Quarters of a Century. New York, 1869. 
Hamilton, Thomas, Men and Manners in America. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 

1833. 
Hammond, Jabez D., Life of Silas Wright. New York, 1848. 
Harrison, W. H. See H. Montgomery. 
Hart, Albert Bushnell, American History Told by Contemporaries. 

New York, 1902. 
Harvey, Peter, Reminiscences of Daniel Webster. Boston, 1877. 
Hayne, Robert Y. See Theodore Dehon Jervey. 

Haywood, Marshall de Lancey, John Branch (pamphlet). Raleigh, 1915. 
Hill, Isaac. See Cyrus P, Bradley. 

Holland, W. H., Life of Martin Van Buren, Hartford, 1835. 
Hone, Philip. Diary. New York, 1889. 
Houston, David F., A Study of Nullification in South Carolina. New 

York, 1896. 
Hunt, Charles Havens, Life of Edward Livingston. New York. 1902. 
Hunt, Gaillard, First Forty Years of Washington Society (Letters of Mrs. 

Samuel Harrison Smith). New York, 1906. 
Hunt, Louise Livingston, Life of Mrs. Edward Livingston. New York, 

1902. 

Jackson, Andrew. See James Parton, Augustus C. Buell, John Spencer 
Bassett, William Graham Sumner, William MacDonald, _CharIes H. 
Peck, Francis Newton Thorp, Frederic Austin Ogg. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 485 

Jackson, R. P., The Chronicles of Georgetovm, "Washington, 1878. 
Jenkins, John Stilwell, Life of John C. Calhoun (Arlington edition). 
/^ Life of James K. Polk. Buffalo, 1850. 

Jervey, Theodore Dehon, Robert Y. Hayne and His Times. New York, 

1909. 
Johnston, Alexander, American Political History. 2 vols. N. Y., 1905. 

Kemble, Frances A., Records of a Girlhood. New York, 1884. 
Kendall, Amos, Autobiography. Boston, 1902. 

Kennedy, John P., Life of William Wirt, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1849. 
Knight, Lucian Lamar, Reminiscences of Famous Georgians. Los An- 
geles, 1907. 

Laborde, Maximilian, History of South Carolina College. Columbia, 

1859. 
Legar^, Hugh Swinton, Works. 2 vols., ed. by sister. Charleston, 1846. 
Linder, Usher F., Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar of Illinois, 

Chicago, 1879. 
Livingston, Edward. See Charles Havens Hunt. 
Livingston, Mrs. Edward. See Louise Livingston Hunt. 
Lodge, Henry Cabot, Life of Daniel Webster. Boston, 1883 (American 

Statesmen). 

MacDonald, William, Jacksonian Democracy. New York, 1906 (The 

American Nation). 
McGrane, Reginald C, Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle. Boston, 1919. 
McKee, Thomas H., National Conventions and Platforms. Baltimore, 
- 1906. 

Mackenzie, William L., Life of Martin Van Buren. Boston, 1846. 
McKinney, Thomas Lorraine, The Office-Holder's Sword of Damocles. See 

Albert Bushnell Hart. 
McLaughlin, Andrew C, Life of Levns Cass. Boston, 1899 (American 

Statesmen). 
McMaster, John Bach, History of the People of the United States. 8 vob. 

New York (Library edition), 1914. 
March, Charles W., Reminiscences of Congress. New York, 1853, 
Marrtat, Capt. Frederick, A Diary in America. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 

1839. 
Martineau, ELvrriet, A Retrospect of Western Travel. 2 vols. London, 

1838. 
Miller, S. F., The Bench and Bar of Georgia. 2 vols. Philadelphia. 
)(^— Montgomery, H., Life of William Henry Harrison. Cleveland, 1852. 
Moore, John Bassett, Works of Buchanan. 12 vols. Philadelphia, 1908. 

Northern, William Jonathan, Men of Mark in Georgia. Atlanta, 1907, 



486 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ogg, Frederic Austin, The Reign of Andrew Jackson (Chronicles of 

America, vol. x.) Yale University Press, 1919. 
O'Neall, James Belton, Bench and Bar of South Carolina. 2 vols. 

Charleston, 1859. 

Parton, James, Life of Andrew Jackson. 3 vols. New York, 1860. 
Payne, George Henry, A Short History of Journalism in the tfnited States. 

New York. 
Peck, Charles H., The Jacksonian Epoch. New York, 1899. 
Poinsett, Joel R. See Charles J. Stills. 
Polk, James K, See John Stilwell Jenkins. 
Poore, Benjamin Perley, Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National 

Metropolis, 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1886. 
Pray, Isaac C, Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett. New York, 1855. 

QuiNCY, JosiAH, Figures of the Past from Leaves of Old Journals. Boston, 
1883. 

Richardson, James Daniel, Messages and Papers of the Presidents. 10 
vols. Washington, 1900. 

Rogers, Joseph M., The Real Henry Clay. Philadelphia, 1905. 

Life of Thomas H. Benton. Philadelphia, 1905 (American Crisis). 

Roosevelt, Theodore, Life of Thomas H. Benton. Boston, 1890 (Ameri- 
can Statesmen). 

Sargent, Nathan, Public Men and Events. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1875. 

Sato, Shosuke, History of the Land Question in the United States. Johns 
Hopkins University Studies, iv, 259-441. 

Schouler, James, History of the United States of America under the Con- 
stitution. 5 vols. New York, 1889-91. 

ScHURZ, Carl, Life of Henry Clay. 2 vols. Boston, 1887 (American 
Statesmen). 

Scott, Nancy N., Memoir of Hugh Lawson White. Philadelphia, 1856. 

Seward, Frederick, Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplo- 
mat. New York, 1916. 

Seward, William H., Autobiography. 3 vols. New York, 1891. 

Shepard, Edward M., Life of Martin Van Buren. Boston, 1899 (Ameri- 
can Statesmen). 

Shipp, J. E. D., Life of William H. Crawford. Americus, Georgia, 1908. 

Smith, Oliver H., Early Indiana Trials and Sketches. Cincinnati, 1858. 

Smith, Mrs. Samuel Harrison. See Gaillard Hunt. 

Smith, W. L. G., Life of Lejois Cass. New York, 1856 

Sparks, W. H., Memories of Fifty Years. Philadelphia, 1882. 

Stanwood, Edward, History of Presidential Elections in the United States. 
Boston, 1912. 

American Tariff Controversies of the Nineteenth Century. Boston, 1903. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 487 

SxiLLfe, Charles J., Life and Services of Joel R. Poinsett (pamphlet). Phila- 
delphia, 1888. 

Story, Joseph. See W. W. Story. 

Story, W. W., Life and Letters of Joseph Story. 2 vols. Boston, 1851. 

Sumner, William Graham, Life of Andrew Jackson. Boston, 1882 (Ameri- 
can Statesmen). 

Taney, Roger B. See Samuel Tyler. 

Taussig, F. W., A Tariff History of the United States. New York, 1888. 

Thorp, Francis Newton, The Statesmanship of Andrew Jackson. New 
York, 1909. 

Tyler, Lyon Gardiner, Letters and Times of the Tylers. 2 vols. Rich- 
mond, 1884. 

Tyler, Samuel, Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney. Baltimore, 1872. 

Van Buren, Martin, Autobiography, edited by John C. Fitzpatrick. 

American Historical Association Report, 1918, vol. il. 
Vigne, Godfrey T., Six Months in America. Philadelphia, 1833. 
Von Holst, H., The Constitutional and Political History of the United 

States. 6 vols. Chicago, 1889. 
Life of John C. Calhoun. Boston, 1886 (American Statesmen). 

Webster, Daniel. See Henry Cabot Lodge, Peter Harvey, George Tick- 
nor Curtis, Sidney George Fisher, and Fletcher Webster. 

Webster, Fletcher, Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster. 2 vols. 
Boston, 1857. 

Weed, Thurlow, Autobiography. 2 vols. Boston, 1884. 

Wharton, Anne Hollingsworth, Social Life of the Early Republic. Phila- 
delphia, 1902. 

White, Hugh Lawson. See Nancy N. Scott. 

Willis, N. P., American Scenery. 3 vols. London, 1840. 

Wilson, Rufus R., Washington the Capital City. Philadelphia, 1901. 

Wilson, Woodrow, History of the United States. 5 vols. New York, 1902. 

Wirt, William. See John P. Kennedy. 

Wise, Barton, Life of Henry A. Wise. New York, 1899. 

Wise, Henry A., Seven Decades of the Union. Philadelphia, 1872. See 
Barton Wise. 

Wright, Silas. See Jabez D. Hammond. 

Congressional Debates and Congressional Globe, 1830-37. 

The National Intelligencer, 1829-37. 

The Washington Globe, 1831-37. 

Documentary History of the U.S. Capitol Buildings and Grounds. House 

Doc. 646, 58th Congress, 1st Session. 
Biographical Congressional Directory. Senate Doc. 654, 61st Congress, 

2d Session. 
John Forsyth MSS., in possession of Waddy Wood, Washington, D.C. 



I 



INDEX 



Abolitionists, Taney and case, 138; 
Thompson's crusade, denunciations, 
434 ; exclusion of mail matter, 435, 445 ; 
as issue (1836) and Van Buren, 435, 
444, 446-48 ; Calhoun and sectionalism 
over petitions, 443-45. 

Adams, J. Q., and dining with colleagues, 
13; and Mrs. Livingston, 22; effect of 
"bargain" story, 31; and viHfication 
(1828), 32, 34; and defeat, 34-36; and 
Jackson's inauguration, 45, 48; and 
Van Buren, 53, 55; on Ingham, 57; and 
crystallization of parties, 64; disloy- 
alty of officials under, 67; and rejection 
of Hill, 83; Calhoun's opposition to 
Administration, 90, 92; and Webster- 
Hayne debate, 98; and Crawford, 
107-09; and Jackson-Calhoun break, 
111-13; on Mrs. Eaton affair, 121, 
132; organ of Administration, 159; on 
Clay, 174, 191; as Opposition leader, 
176; and rejection of Van Buren, 181; 
and Clay and tariff, 185, 186; tariff 
report and bill (1832), 189, 193; and 
overtures by Jackson, 189; political 
character, 190, 191; and Bank re- 
charter as issue, 211; Bank investi- 
, gation report, 216; on Nullification, 
261, 265; and compromise tariff, 281; 
and ending of Twenty-second Con- 
gress, 286; on Jackson at Harvard, 
289; on end of tour, 290; and removal 
of deposits, 342; on Choate, 348; and 
House committee to investigate Bank 
(1834), 349; and spring election 
(1834), 354; and Florida Purchase 
Treaty, 389; and French Spoliation 
Claims, 399, 400; tributes to Jackson, 
400, 417; and Webster, 414; castiga- 
tion of Senate, 414-19; Whig resent- 
ment, 419; on Van Buren and other 
candidates (1836), 438, 450. See also 
Elections (1828, 1832). 

Adams, Mrs. J. Q., "slandered," 32, 83. 

Alabama, and expunging of censure, 369. 

Albany Argus, in campaign of 1832, 
243. 

Albany Journal. See Weed, Thurlow. 

Allen, William, and expunging of cen- 
sure, 465; final conference with 
Jackson, 480. 



American system. iSee Internal im- 
provements; Tariff. 

Amusements, in Washington, 16-29. 

Anderson, , opera in Washington," 

28 n. 

Anti-Masons, Clay's attitude, 234, 238; 
presidential nomination (1832), Wirt 
and Clay, 235-37; Jacksonians de- 
nounce, 237; in campaign, 249; and 
Granger (1836), 433. 

Appeal, as White's organ, 451. 

Archer, W. S., and Ingham, 43; and 
Nullification, 261, 265; and French 
Spoliation Claims, 400. 

Arlington, as residence, 7. 

Arnold, R., peculation, dismissal, 75 n. 

Assassination conspiracy, charge, 376- 
78; Poindexter affair, 378, 379, 382. 

Attorney-General. <See Berrien, J. M.; 
Butler, B. F. ; Taney, R. B. 

Austria, treaty, 229. • '"i 

Baldwin, Henry, and Treasury portfolio; 
42; on Tyler, 78 n. 

Baltimore, National Republican Con- 
vention, 175; Jacksonian, 289; Bank 
harangues, 330; Democratic Conven-. 
tion, 429. 

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, opening 
to Washington, 1. 

Bank of the United Stat«s. See National 
Bank. 

Bankhead, Charles, and French Spoli- 
ation Claims, 420, 421. 

Barbour, James, on Clay's tariff speech, 
188; on presidential contest (1836), 
432; and slavery issue, 435; and 
instructions to expunge censure, 441. 

"Bargain" story, political effect, 31; 
Tyler and, 79; revival (1832), 249; 
Forsyth and, 389. 

Barry, W. T., selection as Postmaster- 
General, 49; career and character, 61; 
and recall of Harrison, 74 ; at Jefferson's 
Birthday dinner, 101; and Berrien, 
129; and Blair, 161; and Post-Office 
corruption, 183, 371-76; and Bank, 
210, 217; and Houston, 241; and re- 
moval of deposits, 293, 303; Spanish 
mission, death, 374. 

Barton, T. P., charg6 at Paris, marriage^ 



490 



INDEX 



406; and French Spoliation Claims, 
408, 409. 

Bell, John, and White's candidacy, 
Blair's attack, 428, 429; defeated for 
Speaker, 439; and Van Buren, 439. 

Bennett, J. G., press letters from Wash- 
ington, 16; attack on Bank, 204; and 
removal of deposits, 297, 298. 

Bentham, Jeremy, and Livingston Code, 
135. 

Benton, T. H., in campaign of 1828, 58; 
and dismissals under Jackson, 72; and 
Webster-Hayne debate, 92, 98, 103; 
at Jefferson's Birthday dinner, 101, 
102; on establishment of the Globe, 
160; as Jacksonian leader, 176; and 
rejection of Van Buren, 181 ; and tariff, 
195; land sale graduation plan, 196; 
report on public lands, 198; hostility 
to Bank, 204; and postponement of 
Bank issue, 208; and Bank investi- 
gation, 215; and Bank veto, Clay 
episode, 219, 224, 225; Jackson duel 
as campaign material, 246; on Webster 
and Jackson, 276; on compromise 
tariff, 278, 283 n.; and removal of 
deposits, 307; leader against Bank, 
319; political character, 319; and 
Senate measures on deposits, 322; 
speech on censure, 331; and Webster's 
compromise recharter measure, 335; 
on resolution to restore deposits, 350; 
and Taney's report on finances, 351; 
and expunging censure, 368, 369, 371, 
461, 462; patronage inquiry, 383; on 
extinguishment of debt, 385; on For- 
tifications Bill, 404, 410, 412; and 
French SpoHation Claims, 408, 409; on 
politics in Abolitionist affairs, 447; 
conciliation dinner, 465; and ex- 
punging excitement, altercation with 
Clay, 470, 471; at dinner celebrating 
expunging, 471; on Jackson at Van 
Buren's inauguration, 479; last con- 
ference with Jackson, 480. 

Bernard, Simon, on Calhoun, 89 n. 

Berrien, J. M., selection as Attorney- 
General, 44; career and character, 60; 
and Mrs. Eaton, Calhoun adherent, 
resignation, 121, 123, 125, 127, 129, 
130; and Nullification, 125, 127, 388; 
becomes Whig, 132. 

Bibb, G. M., on Barry, 372; patronage 
inquiry, 383. 

Biddie, Nicholas, and Lewis, 155; Mason 
episode, 203; warning against politics, 
203; and attitude of Administration 



(1831), 204-07; and press propaganda, 
207, 228; and problem of application 
for recharter, 209; forced to recharter 
application, 212, 213, 217; character, 
212; and recharter before Congress, 
216; on veto message, 221; in cam- 
paign of 1832, 238, 239; hope in 
Clay-NuUifiers union, 291; and Wall 
Street, 300 n.; control over Bank, 305; 
policy of economic coercion, 310, 313- 
15; and rejection of Government Bank 
directors, 324; and Clay's selfish atti- 
tude, 332, 360, 366; and Webster's 
recharter measure, 334; and election 
riots, 363 ; final opinion of a supporter, 
368. See also National Bank. 

Binney, Horace, on drinking, 18; and 
removal of deposits, 314; and Web- 
ster's compromise recharter measure, 
334; as champion of Bank, as orator, 
343; in debate on deposits, 344, 346, 
347; and Jackson, 347; report on 
deposits, 348. 

Black, John, and Abolitionist petitions^ 
444 n. 

Blair, F. P., on rapid communication, 1; 
on Washington society, 27; establish- 
ment of the Globe as Jackson's organ, 

160, 161, 164; advent in Washington, 
appearance, relations with Jackson, 

161, 162, 478, 480; political career 
and character, 162-64; Green contest, 
164; and daily paper, 165; as editor of 
Globe, 165-67; value of services, 169; 
political use of rejection of Van Buren, 
182; and tariff issue, 188; and Clay's 
land policy, 200; and Bank, 218; and 
Bank veto, 219, 221; on premature 
recharter of Bank, 208 n. ; on Webb as 
turncoat, 228; on Nullifiers and Clay, 
232, 233; on Clay and Anti-Masons, 
237; and Jackson retirement canard, 
240; campaign methods, 242-44; 
campaign personalities, 247, 248; on 
Jackson and Nullification, 252; on 
compromise tariff combination, 280, 
283; and Bank and Clay-Calhoun 
union, 291; and removal of deposits, 
296, 298; and Barry, 303; and Cabinet 
paper on deposits, 305; and excitement 
over deposits, 330; on Hopkinson and 
Bank, 347; on Whig Bank pohcy, 367; 
and assassination conspiracy, 377, 378, 
382; and French crisis, 395, 396, 411; 
and White, 424, 425; and vice-presi- 
dential candidates (1835), 431; de- 
nunciation of White's candidacy and 



INDEX 



491 



Bell, 428, 429; and Whitney affair, 
461 ; on Jackson's last conference, 480. 
See also Kitchen Cabinet; Washington 
Globe. 

Boarding houses, in Washington, 12. 

Bodisco, Baron, as social leader, 27. 

Booth, J. B., appearances in Washington 
Theater, 16. 

Bouldin, J. W., and French Spoliation 
Claims, 400. 

Branch, John, selection as Secretary of 
the Navy, 44; career and character, 
59; appearance, manner, 59; at Jef- 
ferson's Birthday dinner, 101; Mrs. 
Eaton controversy, resignation, Cal- 
houn adherent, 119, 120, 123, 125, 
126, 130; becomes Whig, 132. 

Branch, Mrs. John, and Mrs. Eaton, 
120, 123. 

Broglie, Due de, and Spoliation Claims, 
390, 406, 408. 

Brooke, Francis, and Clay's health, 249; 
and instructions to expunge censure, 
441. 

Brown, Jesse, as hotel keeper, 3. 

Bryant, W. C, on Biddle, 368. 

Buchanan, James, and Cabinet position, 
129; and Globe as official organ, 168; 
and French Spoliation Claims, 390, 
397; and Fortifications Bill, 403; 
and Abolitionist petitions, 444; and 
AboUtionist mail, 445; on expunging 
censure, 468. 

Burges, Tristam " mess," 12; and French 
Spoliation Claims, 401. 

Butler, B. F., and Cabinet offer, 1; 
manner, 10; appointment aa Attorney- 
General, 310; and Jackson's Protest, 
339; confirmed, 352. 

Bynum, J. A., and Fortifications Bill, 
404. 

Cabinet, Butler and portfolio, 1; ex- 
clusion of presidential aspirants, 40; 
Van Buren and Calhoun and selection, 
40; selection of first, 40-45, 119; fac- 
tional character, 45, 125; character of 
Jackson's first Secretaries, 53-63; 
Tyler and selection, 79; effect of Jack- 
son-Calhoun break, 115; wrecked by 
Mrs. Eaton. 116, 119, 123, 130-32; 
resignation, 124-27; construction of 
new, 127-30; reception of new, 130; 
character of new Secretaries, 132- 
43; attitude on Bank recharter, 217; 
second reorganization, 287; and re- 
i moval of deposits, 292, 293, 303, 305; 



dismissal of Duane, third reorganiza- 
tion, 309, 310; Senate's rejection of 
Taney, 352; fourth reorganization, 
358, 359; Kendall succeeds Barry, 
374;VanBuren's, 473. 

Cadwalader, Thomas, as Bank agent at 
Washington, 210-12; bears recharter 
application, accident, 214. 

Calhoun, J. C, "mess," 12; and Harriet 
Martineau, 14; and Mrs. Livingston, 
22; in society, 24; presidential aspira- 
tions and Van Buren, 40, 85; and 
selection of Cabinet, 40-42, 44, 45; 
and Tyler, 77; and Jackson's appoint- 
ments, 85, 86; political effect of break 
with Jackson, 88, 110, 111, 115; 
political career and character, 88-91; 
and War of 1812, 89; opposition to 
Adams's Administration, 90, 92; ap- 
pearance, 91; and Webster-Hay ne 
debate, 92, 97; and Jackson's Union 
toast, 102, 103; and Jackson's Sem- 
inole campaign, break with Jackson, 
103-06, 110-15; and Crawford, 107, 
108; Jackson pamphlet, 113; followers 
eliminated from Cabinet, 125, 130; 
Duff Green's organ, 159; and party 
leadership, 173; and Clay, 173; as anti- 
Jackson leader, 176, 285; and re- 
jection of Van Buren, 178, 181; invi- 
tation to join Opposition, 184; and 
Bank, 210; and support of Clay 
(1832), 231-33; Blair on attitude 
(1832), 233; and South Carolina's vote, 
251; Nullification and Jackson's 
hatred, 252, 269, 277, 279, 480; Expo- 
sition, 253 ; letter urging Nullification, 
254; and Nullification Proclamation, 
265; journey to Washington, 266; 
taking seat in Senate, 267; and mes- 
sage on Nullification, 269; constitu- 
tional resolutions, 269; speech on 
Force Bill, 274 ; and compromise tariff, 
277-82; and rescission of Nulhfication, 
284; and distress petitions, 327; speech 
on censure, 331; confidence in Bank 
success, 332; and Webster's recharter 
measure, 334, 335; on Jackson's Pro- 
test, 341; Ritchie on presidential 
ambition, 364; rage against Jackson, 
368; on Post-Office corruption, 369; on 
expunging censure, 370, 371, 464; and 
assassination conspiracy, 377; patron- 
age inquiry and report, 382-84; and 
AboUtionist petitions and sectionaUsm, 
443-45; bill on Abolitionist mail« 
political motive, 446-48; attack 00 



492 



INDEX 



Jackson and Van Buren (1836), 449; 
Jackson's triumph, 472. 

Calhoun, Mrs. J. C, and Mrs. Eaton, 
120. 

Cambreleng, C. C, as Jackson leader, 
177; and French Spoliation Claims, 
399, 401; and Fortifications Bill, 404, 
411,414. 

Campbell, J. N., and Mrs. Eaton, 119, 
120. 

Capitol, in the thirties, 8-11. 

Cartoons, in campaign of 1832, 241. 

Carusi, Louis, assembly, 28. 

Cass, Lewis, on McLean and justiceship, 
49; selection as Secretary of War, 129; 
career and character, 140-43; and 
Bank, 212, 217; and Nullification, 
letter to Virginia. 255, 262; in New 
England tour, 289; and removal of 
deposits, question of resignation, 293, 
303, 305, 309; French mission, 473. 

Censure of Jackson, Senate resolutions 
introduced, 325; debate, 330-32; 
passage, 337; Jackson's Protest, 338, 
339; debate on Protest, refusal to 
receive it, 339-42; State Legislatures 
and instructions to expunge, attitude 
of Senators, 368, 441-43; first ex- 
punging movement (1836), 369-71; 
expunging as national issue, and 
changes in Senate, 461, 462; Benton's 
and Buchanan's speeches, 462, 463; 
Whig speeches, 463-69; Benton's 
Democratic conciliation dinner, 465; 
Benton's refreshments at Capitol, 465, 
468; vote to expunge, 469; tension, 
ceremony, protest of gallery, 470, 
471; Jackson's dinner, 471. 

Chabaulon, Henri de, and Spoliation 
Claims, 405. 

Chapman, J. C, exhibition of paintings, 
28. 

Chevalier, Michel, on campaign parade, 
245. 

Cheves, Langdon, and Treasury port- 
folio, 43. 

Choate, Rufus, as Opposition leader, 
177; Bank speech, 348. 

Cholera, and campaign of 1832, 243, 247, 
249. 

Churches, of Washington, 8. 

Civil service, office-seekers and Jackson, 
38, 39, 66, 69, 70; ofiice-holders and 
Jackson, 39; McLean and proscrip- 
tions, 49; Van Buren's attitude, 54; 
Jackson and exigent origin of spoils 
system, 64, 67-69, 480; office-holding 



class, 65; demands for proscription^ 
65; dismissals, hardships, extent, 70- 
74; dismissal of criminal officials, 75; 
Senate's rejection of nomination of 
editors, 76, 80-87; review under 
Jackson, 228; Senate's patronage 
inqmry, 382-84; proposed repeal of 
four-year-tenure law, 384. 
Clay, Henry, and Harriet Martineau, 
14; and Mrs. Livingston, 22; in so- 
ciety, 24; effect of " bargain" story, 31; 
and campaign of 1828, vilified, 32; and 
defeat (1828), 35, 36; and Jackson's 
inauguration, 48; personal opposition 
to Jackson, 50-53; and crystallization 
of parties, 65; and Tyler, 77, 79; and 
Kendall, 145, 146, 148; return to 
Senate as leader of Opposition, 171, 
172; character, as politician, 172-75; 
Calhoun on, 173; Adams on, 174, 191; 
nomination for Presidency, 175; search 
for an issue, 175, 177; platform, 176; 
and rejection of Van Buren, 178- 
80; West Indian trade negotia- 
tions, 178; and confirmation of Liv- 
ingston, 182; tariff plan (1832), 185- 
87; tariff speeches, 187, 188; and con- 
ference tariff bill, 195; vulnerable pub- 
lic lands policy, 195-97; and public 
lands bill, speech, 197-200; makes re- 
charter of Bank his issue, 206-12, 217; 
on Bank veto, 221, 222, 224; Benton 
episode over Bank, 225; conduct of 
campaign, 230; and Nullifiers, 231; 
and Anti-Masons, 234-38; campaign 
abuse, 247; during campaign, 249; 
defeat, 251; Nullification and playing 
politics, 260, 261, 264, 280, 285; and 
Force Bill debate, 270; and compro- 
mise tariff, 278-81, 283; pocket veto 
of land bill, 286; and distress petitions, 
315, 327; resolution on depository 
banks, 322; demand for Cabinet paper 
on Bank, 323; and legal basis of 
deposits controversy, 325; resolutions 
censuring Jackson, 325; speech on 
censure, 330; confidence in Bank vic- 
tory, 332; selfish attitude toward 
Bank, 332, 335, 366; and Webster's 
compromise recharter measure, 335; 
Van Buren and histrionics over distress, 
335-37; resolution to restore deposits, 
350; and Taney's report on finances, 
350; and expunging censure, speech, 
369, 371, 465-68; and Barry, 372; and 
Poindextcr investigation, 382; and 
Forsyth, 389; and French crisis, 396, 



INDEX 



493 



397, 417; and White's candidacy, 424; 
and candidacy (1S3G), 431; on possible 
Whig candidates, 432, 433; and re- 
jection of Taney, 441; during cam- 
paign, endorses Harrison, 452; and 
election of Van Buren, 456; Benton 
altercation after expunging, 471; 
Jackson's triumph, 472; Jackson's 
hatred, 480. .See also Election (1832). 

Dlayton, A. S., and Bank investigation, 
215. 

Dlayton, J. M., and crystallization of 
parties, 65; as Opposition leader, 176; 
and rejection of Van Buren, 180; 
appearance, character, 183; and 
Post-Office investigation, 183; invi- 
tation to Nullifiers, 184; and Force 
Bill, 270,271; and compromise tariff, 
278, 280, 282, 283. 

Coach hire, in Washington, 4. 

Cockfighting at Washington, 18. 

Colombia, relations with, 229. 

Congress, Twenty-first: beginning of 
campaign speeches, 55; Senate and 
Jackson's nominations, 76, 80-87; 
Webster-Hayne debate, 92-99. 

Twenty-second; Clay as leader of 
Opposition, 172; other leaders, 176, 
177; rejection of Van Buren, 177- 
82; investigation of Post-Office, 183; 
tariff of 1832, 185-89, 193-95; public 
lands, 197-99, 286; Bank recharter 
and investigation, 214-26; campaign 
denunciation, 229; Administration's 
tariff bill (1833), 267; annual message, 
257; message on Nullification, 268, 
269; Force Bill, 269-76, 281; com- 
promise tariff, 277-82; dramatic end, 
286. 

Twenty-third: petitions on Bank 
question, 315, 327-29; leaders in Bank 
controversy, 319-21; Senate measures 
on removal of deposits, 322-24; legal 
basis of deposits contest, 325; public 
interest in Bank debate, 326; censure 
of Jackson, 325, 330-33, 337, Web- 
ster's compromise recharter measure, 
333-35; Van Buren and Clay's his- 
trionics, 335-37; Jackson's Protest, 
not received, 338-42; House measures 
and debate on deposits, 342-49; 
House committee to investigate Bank, 
349, 350; Senate resolution to restore 
deposits, 350; Taney's special report 
on finances, 350-52; rejection of 
nominations, 352; and expunging 
censure, 368-71; Post-Office investi- 



gation 'and' reorganization, 369, 371- 

74; Poindextcr investigation, 382; 
patronage inquiry, 382-84; French 
crisis, 392, 393, 396, 397, 399-402; 
Fortifications Bill, 402-05; Speaker- 
ship contest, 429. 

Twenty-fourth: French crisis, 408-11 ; 
debate on failure of Fortifications Bill, 
410-20; Speakership, 439; confirma- 
tion of Taney, 440; expunging censure, 
441. 442, 461-71; Abolitionist affairs 
and politics, 443-48; Whitney affair, 
457-61. 

"Coodies," 137 n. 

Cooper, Thomas, and National Bank| 
291. 

Corwin, Thomas, as Opposition leaderj 
177. 

Cox, M. M., peculation, dismissal, 75 n. 

Crawford, W. H., Washington residence, 
6; and Jackson-Calhoun break, 104- 
06; political career and character, 
candidacy (1824), 106-10; and Adams, 
Jackson, Calhoun, 107, 108; charges 
against, investigation, 107, 108. 

Crittenden, J. J., and expunging of cen- 
sure, 463. 

Crockett, Davy, biography of Van 
Buren, 436-38. 

Custis, G. W., residence, 7. 

Cuthbert, Alfred, Fortifications Bill,' 
413; and Abolitionist petitions, 444 
n.; on politics in Abolitionist affairs, 
447. 

Dallas, G. M., and Livingston, 128 n., 
182; Bank recharter bill, 214. 

Dana, Judah, and expunging of censure, 
463. 

Dancing, in Washington, 26. 

Daniel, P. V., and Attorney-Generalshipi 
310. 

Davis, Jefferson, on Calhoun's eyes, 92 n. 

Davis, M. L., press letters from Wash- 
ington, 16. 

Dawson, Moses, rejection by Senate, 82. 

Denmark, claims against, 229. 

Depository banks, proposed regulation, 
383, 384. 

Deposits. iSee Removal of deposits. 

Dickerson, Mahlon, as Jacksonian 
leader, 176; vice-presidential candi- 
dacy, 182; and tariff bill, 194, 195; 
and Bank, 211 n., 217; Secretary of 
the Navy, 359. 

District of Columbia, Van Buren and 
slavery in, 451. 



494 



INDEX 



Donelsonj""A. J.J and Jackson's Union 
toast, 101; in New England tour, 289; 
and message on French crisis, 3f)2. 

Donelson, Mrs. Emily, and Mrs. Eaton, 
123; as mistress of White House, 475. 

Drayton, William, and Ingham, 43; and 
Cabinet position, 129; and Nullifica- 
tion, 269. 

Drinking, in Washington, 18. 

Duane, W. J., character, selection as 
Secretary of the Treasury, 287, 288; 
and removal of deposits, 294-97, 
303; recalcitrance and dismissal, 
306-09. 

Dupin, A. M. J. J.i and Spoliation 
Claims, 391. 

Earle, Ralph, in Jackson's New England 
tour, 289; at White House, 478, re- 
turn to Hermitage, 480. 

Eatr^^ J. H., selection as Secretary of 
War, 43, 119; political carser and 
character, 57; in campaign of 1828, 
58; at Jefferson's Birthday dinner, 
101; and Peggy O'Neal, marriage, 118; 
resignation, 124; and return to 
Senate, 128; pursuit of Ingham, 131, 
132; later career, 132. 

Eaton, Mrs. J. H., [Peggy O'Neal], 
wrecks Cabinet, 116, 123-25, 130; 
character, appearance, 117; relations 
with Eaton, marriage, 118; Jackson's 
investigation and championship, 119, 
120; snubbing and championing, 
political effect, 119-22; later career, 
132; as graft go-between, 376. 

Edwards, Ninian, and Crawford, 107, 
108. 

Election of 1824, rival Cabinet candi- 
dates, 107-10. 

Election of 1828, significance, 31, 34, 81; 
Washington and, 31, 35; vilification, 
32-34; Adams's Administration and 
defeat, 35, 36; Eaton as Jackson's 
manager, 58; newspapers in, 81; Cal- 
houn's attitude, 91; Lewis's services, 
153. 

Election of 1832, quick returns, 2; elim- 
-^ ination of Calhoun, 110, 111, 115; 
Jackson's candidacy, 164, 172; Clay's 
nomination, his search for an issue, 
175, 177, 226; his platform, 176; and 
Senate's rejection of Van Buren, 181, 
182; union of elements of Opposition, 
184; failure of tariff as issue, 188, 195; 
Clay's land policy as issue, 196, 199, 
200; Bank as issue, 207, 209, 212-14, 



217, 219, 223, 225, 226, 244, 248; as 
democratic campaign, 227; news- 
papers in, 228; Kendall's review of 
Jackson's Administration, 228-30; 
Nullifiers' support of Clay, 230-33; 
Anti-Masons and Clay, 234-37; Jack- 
sonians denounce Anti-Masons, 237, 
238; Bank propaganda, 238-40; 
canards on Jackson, 240, 241; Whig 
cartoons,' 241; Kitchen Cabinet and 
organization and publicity, 242-45; 
meetings and parades, 245, 246; person- 
alities, 246; candidates during cam- 
paign, 249, 250; Democratic confi- 
dence, 250, 251; result, 251; and Nul- 
lification, 252. 

Election of 1834, Bank and spring 
elections, 354-57; Whig Party, 357; 
Whig purpose and methods, 358; 
Democratic purpose, 361; verdict on 
Bank of fall elections, 361-65; riots in 
Philadelphia, 363. 

Election of 1836, Van Buren as heir 
apparent, 423; White as anti-Van 
Buren prospect, 424; Whigs and 
White's candidacy, 424, 425; Demo- 
cratic efforts to suppress White, 426; 
Blair's denunciations of White and 
Bell, 428, 429; Democratic Convention, 
Tennessee and, 429; Democratic vice- 
presidential nomination, 430, 431; 
Clay and candidacy, 431; Whig can- 
didates, 432, 433; Whig hope in elec- 
tion by House, 432; Whig vice-presi- 
dential candidates, 433; slavery issue 
as anti-Van Buren weapon, 435, 436, 
444, 446-48, 452; Crockett's biography 
of Van Buren, 436-38; Adams on 
candidates, 438, 450; Van Buren's 
campaign attitude, 438; Jackson's 
activity. White's attack on it, 448, 
452, 453; lack of issues, 449, 451; basis 
of White's candidacy, 449; campaign 
methods, 451; queries to candidates, 
451, 452; Clay and campaign, 452; 
results, comparison with 1832, 454-56. 

Everett, Edward, as Opposition leader, 
177; tariff conference, 185, 186; and 
Jackson at Harvard, 289; report on 
Bank, 349; and French crisis, 399, 
401. 

Ewing, Thomas, as anti-Jackson leader, 
176; and rejection of Van Buren, 180; 
and instructions to expunge censure, 
442. 

Fairfield, John, on Whitney affair. 459. 



INDEX 



495 



Farewell Address, purpose, character, 472. 

Fashions, at Washington, 20. 

Federalists, Webster as, 94, 96; Taney 
as, 137. 

Ferdinand of Spain, and Florida Treaty, 
389. 

Fiske, John, on Jackson's foreign policy, 
421. 

Florida, Purchase Treaty, Forsyth's 
credit, 389. See also Seminole cam- 
paign. 

Floyd, John, overtures to Clay, 231; 
South Carolina's electoral vote, 251; 
and Nullification, 261. 

Foote, H. S., on Kendall, 374. 

Force, Peter, in campaign of 1828, 32. 

Force Bill, presentation, 269; debate in 
Senate, 270-72; Calhoun's speech, 
274; Webster's speech, 275; passage, 
282. 

Foreign relations, Jackson's selection of 
ministers, 50; Globe as official organ, 
168, 169; Van Buren as Minister to 
England, 177; accomplishments under 
Jackson, 229; character of Jackson's 
advisers, 389; Oregon boundary, 390, 
480; results of Jackson's policy, 421. 
See also French Spoliation Claims. 

Forsyth, John, and Webster-Hayne 
debate, 93; and Jackson-Calhoun 
break, 104-06; as Jacksonian leader, 
176; and rejection of Van Buren, 
180; and Bank, 211 n.; and Nullifi- 
cation, 269, 271; and compromise 
tariff, 282; and Attorney-Generalship, 
310; on distress petitions, 315, 327, 
329; and call for Cabinet paper, 323; 
in censure debate, 332; and Webster's 
recharter measure, 335; and Jackson's 
Protect, 341, 342; on naming Whig 
Party, 357; selection as Secretary of 
State, 359; character, 386-89; as 
diplomatist, 389, 390; and French 
crisis, 392, 398, 405, 420; and Forti- 
fications Bill, 404, 411; and slavery 
issue, 435; and Georgia's vote (1836), 
455. 

Forsyth, Mrs. John, as social leader, 23; 
and F. S. Key, 25. 

Fortifications Bill, failure (1835), respon- 
sibility, 402-05, 413; Adams's casti- 
gation of Senate, 414-20. 

Foster, J. W., on Jackson's foreign 
policy, 422. 

Four-year-tenure law, proposed repeal, 
384. 

Fox, H. S., as social leader, 27. 



Prance. See French Spoliation Claims. 

Frankfort Argus, under Kendall and 
Blair, 146-48, 163; Blair's attack 
on Nullification, 160. 

Frelinghuysen, Theodore, in censure 
debate, 332; on Jackson's Protest, 340; 
defeat, 302. 

French Spoliation Claims, Jackson's 
treaty, 229, 386; failure to appropriate 
payments, 386, 391; dilemma of 
French Government, 390, 391; need 
of strong public stand, 391, 397 
annual message (1834) on, 392, 393 
Whig attitude, 393, 395, 396, 420, 422 
message and Whig opposition in France, 
394, 405, 411; French protest on mes- 
sage, 395 ; Senate and message, adverse 
report, 396, 397; Livingston's reply to 
French protest, 398; imminence of 
war, 398, 399, 409, 410; House dis- 
cussion, Adams's attitude, 39 -402; 
failure of Fortifications Bill, respon- 
sibility, 402-05, 410-19; explanation 
demanded of France, 405; French 
demand for apology, 405, 408; Liv- 
ingston leaves, 406; his ovation at 
home, 407; personal phase of crisis, 
406, 407, 409; Jackson and demand 
for apology, 408; message on crisis, 
409-11; British mediation, French 
backdown, 420, 421. 

Fuller's Hotel, 3. 

Gadsby, John, as hotel keeper, 3. 

Gales, Joseph, in campaign of 1828, 32; 
printer to the House, 277. See also 
National Intelligencer. 

Gallatin, Albert, West Indian trade 
negotiations, 178; warning to Bank, 
318, 360. 

Gambling, in Washington, 18. 

Gardner, J. B., rejection by Senate, 82. 

Garrison, W. L., mobbed, 434. 

Georgetown, as residence section, 6, 7. 

Georgia, and Nullification, 388; vote in 
1836, 455. 

Globe. See Washington Globe. 

Gossip, in Washington society, 25. 

Granger, Francis, vice-presidential can- 
didacy, 433. 

Great Britain, character of Jackson'a 
Minister to, 50, 177; West Indian 
trade negotiations, 178; Oregon con- 
troversy, 390, 480. 

Green, Duff, and spoils system, 65, 68; 
and Calhoun's presidential aspirations, 
85, 91; and Webster-Hayne debate, 97; 



496 



INDEX 



and Jackson-Calhoun break, 113, 114, 
159; and Mrs. Eaton, 130; paper as 
Jackson's organ, 159; and Blair, 164; 
and loan from Bank, 207; support of 
Clay, 231, 232; printer to Senate, 277; 
and Force Bill, 284; and Bell, 429; in 
campaign of 1836, 451. See also 
United States Telegraph. 

Green, Nathaniel, pre-inaugural con- 
ferences, 39. 

Grundy, Felix, on Barry, 372; and Web- 
ster-Hayne debate, 93; and White, 
128, 426; as Jacksonian leader, 176; 
and tariff, 195; and Force Bill, 271, 
272; in debate on censure, 332; and 
Webster's recharter measure, 335 ; and 
Abolitionist mail, 445. 

Hamilton, Alexander, Jr., and Bank, 
204, 318, 360. 

Hamilton, James, and Ingham, 43; and 
Nullification, 253; Calhoun's Nulli- 
fication letter, 254. 

Hamilton, James A., as Van Buren's 
Washington agent, 41; and Jackson- 
Calhoun break, 104, 105, 114; and 
McLane, 125; political importance, 
201; and Jackson's first message, 201, 
202; and Bank investigation, 215; 
and Bank veto, 217, 218; and Nul- 
lification, 256, 257, 263; and removal 
of deposits, 290, 291, 306; and spring 
elections (1834), 354; and French 
crisis, 398. 

Hamilton, Mrs. Philip, and Jackson, 
478. 

Hamilton, Thomas, on Washington, 2, 
4, 5; on Supreme Court, 10 n.; on 
slavery, 11; lionized, 14; on Capital's 
social charm, 19. 

Hardin, Benjamin, and Spoliation 
Claims, 402; Randolph on, 402. 

Harper, William, and Nullification, 253, 
388. 

Harris, Thomas, removes bullet from 
\ Jackson, 246. 

Harrison, Benjamin, as lawyer, 54. 

Harrison, W. H., cause of final illness, 
14 n. ; recall, 74 ; presidential candidacy. 
Clay's attitude, 432, 433, 452; and 
slavery issue, 436; Adams on, 438; 
electoral vote, 454. 

Hartford Convention, Webster's atti- 
tude, 95. 

Hawes, A. G., Johnson incident, 373. 

Hayne, R. Y., and Ingham, 43; Webster 
debate as politieal, 92, 93, 98; UuioQ 



issue, 93, 97, 99, 103; political career 
and character, 96; speech, effect, 96, 
97; Webster's reply, 98; and Jackson'a 
Union toast, 102; as anti-Jackson 
leader, 176; and rejection of Van 
Buren, 180; and tariff, 187, 194; and 
Nullification Proclamation, 265; and 
arming of Nulhfiers, 268; urges 
caution, 277; and rescission of Nul- 
lification, 284. 

Health, conditions at Washington, 29. 

Hendricks, William, and Bank, 211 n. 

Hermitage, Jackson's journeys to and 
from, 250, 252, 358, 360, 361, 452, 
453, 480. 

Hill, Isaac, in campaign of 1828, vili- 
fication, 32, 33, 157; pre-inaugural 
conferences, 38, 39; and spoils system, 
66, 71, 73; rejection by Senate, 82, 83; 
protests on rejection, 86, 87; becomes 
Senator, 87, 129; on Webster, 95; 
political career and character, as 
editor, 155-58; appearance, 158; role 
in Kitchen Cabinet, 169; and tariff, 
195; Mason episode, 202; campaign 
methods, 242, 245, 248; campaign 
bets, 251; in New England tour, 289; 
and petitions on Bank, 329; and 
Webster's recharter measure, 335; 
and vice-presidential candidates 
(1835), 431; on Calhoun and section- 
alism, 444. See also Kitchen Cabinet. 

Holland, W. M., biography of Van 
Buren, 438. 

Holmes, John, and rejection of Van 
Buren, 180 n.; campaign abuse, 248. 

Hone, Philip, on campaign of 1832, 251; 
on Nullification Proclamation, 263; 
on Jackson in New York, 289 n.; on 
Bank and depression, 311, 312, 352; 
and distress meeting, 316; on cam- 
paign (1834), 362, 365; final judgment 
on Biddle, 368; on French crisis, 393, 
405, 407, 409; on Van Buren during 
campaign, 438; on campaign, 450. 

Hopkinson, Joseph, and Bank, Blair's 
accusation, 347. 

Horse-racing, at Washington, IS. 

Hotels, in Washington, 3. 

House of Representatives, chamber, 9. 
See also Congress. 

Houston, Sam, attack on Congressman, 
241. 

Hughes, , opera in Washington, 28 n. 

Hugo, Victor, on Livingston Code, 135. 

Huygens, Madame, and Mrs. Eaton, 
122. 



INDEX 



497 



Ice cream, as social novelty, 26. 

Inauguration, of Jackson, character of 
/ crowd, 36, 47; his arrival and recep- 
tion, 37; his attitude and conferences, 
38-4(J[ selection of Cabinet 40-45; 
Adams and, 45, 48; ceremony, 46; 
reception at White House 47; JacK- 
son's second, 287; Van Buren's, 479. 

Indian Queen, as hotel, 3. 

Industry, prosperity, 229. 

Ingersoll, C. J., and Bank recharter, 
215, 218. 

Ingham, S. D., selection as Secretary of 
the Treasury, 42; political career and 
character, 57; and office-seekers, 69; 
and Mrs. Eaton controversy, resig- 
nation, 123, 126; and Bank and Cal- 
houn, 125; flight from Eaton, 131, 
132; and Mason episode, 203; Cal- 
houn's tribute, 275. 

Ingham, Mrs. S. D., and Mrs. Eaton, 
120, 123. 

Internal improvements, Jackson's vetoes, 
171; Clay's platform, 176. 

Irving, Washington, in Washington, 15. 

Jackson, Andrew, and Booth's acting, 
16; and horse-racing, 18; and cock- 
fighting, 18; election as revolution, 
31, 34, 81; vilified in 1828, and at- 
tacks on wife, 32-34; arrival at 
Washington, 37; pre-inaugural atti- 
tude and conferences, 38—40; selection 
of first Cabinet, 40-45, 49; and 
Adams, later overtures, 45, 189; 
inauguration, reception at White 
House, 46-48; first disaffections, 48, 
60; and McLean and proscriptions, 
49 ; and Tazewell and English mission, 
60; Clay's personal opposition, 50-53; 
and Eaton, 58; and origin of spoils 
system, attitude of advisers, 64, 67- 
69, 480; and crystallization of par- 
ties, 65, 67; clamor of office-seekers, 
66, 69, 70; dismissals under, 70-76; 
and recall of Harrison, 74; Tyler's hos- 
tility, 78-80; and press, 81; and rejec- 
tions by Senate, 86; political effect of 
break with Calhoun, 88, 110, 111, 
115; and Webster-Hayne debate, 93, 
97, 99, 100; Jefferson's Birthday din- 
ner. Union toast, 100-03; Calhoun 
and Seminole campaign, break with 
Calhoun, 103-06, 110-15; and Craw- 
ford, 107, 109; and Eaton's marriage, 
118; and Mrs. Eaton, 119-21; resig- 
nation of Cabinet, 123-27; construc- 



tion of new Cabinet, 127-30; and 
Eaton-Ingham letters, 132; first 
contact with Livingston, 134; Taney's 
support (1824), 139; character of 
Kitchen Cabinet, 144; relations with 
Lewis, 151-54; establishment of or- 
gan, 158-61; and Duff Green, 160; 
and Blair, 162, 166, 478, 480; candi- 
dacy for reelection, 164, 172; aad 
Globe finances, 165 n.; services of 
Kitchen Cabinet, 169; evidences of 
leadership, 171; tariff views, 171, 
185; opponents and supporters in 
Congress (1832), 176, 177; union of 
elements of Opposition, 184; and 
tariff as issue, 188, 195; and land 
policy, 196; Bank in first message, 
reason for attack, 201-04; attitude on 
Bank (1831), Biddlo's overtures, 
204-08; and Bank as issue, 209; and 
compromise recharter, 212, 215; and 
Bank investigation, 215; Bank veto, 
217-22, 244; and Supreme Court, 
220; Kendall's campaign review of 
Administration, 228-30; and Anti^ 
Masons, 237; retirement and health 
canards, 240, 241; and Houston's 
attack, 241; campaign abuse (1832), 
246; and cholera, 247; during cam- 
paign, confidence, 249-51; reelection, 
251; and expected Nullification, 
252; and Unionist dinner, 254; Poin- 
sett as agent in South Carolina, 255; 
preparation to combat Nullification, 
255; desire for peaceful settlement, 
256-58, 268; annual message (1832), 
257, Nullification Proclamation, 257- 
60; intention to punish Nullifiers, 
259, 269, 273, 277-79; and Virginia's 
attitude, 262; and Van Buren's atti- 
tude, 263, 264; and tariff bill (1833). 
267; message on Nullification, 208; 
and Webster's attitude, overtures, 
274-77, 288, 332; and compromise 
tariff, 279, 280, 281; Nullification and 
union of opponents, 285; second in- 
auguration, address, 287; second 
reorganization of Cabinet, 287, 288; 
New England tour, 288-90; origin of 
plan to remove deposits, 289-92 ; and 
Duane's attitude on deposits, 295; and 
delay in removal, 297; and divided 
counsel on removal, 299; and Van 
Buren's attitude, 299-301; and 
Taney's advocacy, 301; determines 
on removal, 302; Cabinet paper on 
reasons for removal, 303-05; and atti- 



498 



INDEX 



tude of Cabinet, 306, 309; dismis- 
sal of Duane, third reorganization 
of Cabinet, 307-09; and Bank's 
curtailments, 313, 361; and distress 
petitions, 316; character of papers on 
Bank, 322; and Senate's call for 
Cabinet paper, 323; censure by 
Senate, 325, 330-32, 337; Protest. 
338, 339; Senate's refusal to receive 
Protest, 339-42; and Binney, 347; 
fourth reorganization of Cabinet, 
358, 359; character of Bank fight, 
367; expunging of censure, 368-71, 
441-43, 461-71; and Post-Office re- 
organization, 372; attempt to assas- 
sinate, conspiracy charge, Poindexter, 
376-79, 382 ; relations with Poindexter, 
380, 381; and extinguishment of debt, 
385; French Spoliation Claims treaty, 
386; and failure to pay claims, 386, 
391, 392; and foreign affairs advisers, 
389; and Oregon, 390; annual message 
on failure to pay French claims, 392, 
393; and French protest on message, 
398; Adams's tributes, 400, 417; and 
Fortifications Bill, 404; and Cora 
Livingfiton, 406; and Mme. Pageot, 
407; and French demand for apology, 
408; special message on French crisis, 
409-11; and British mediation, 420; 
and French backdown, 421; results of 
foreign policy, 421; and Van Buren as 
successor, 423; White's drift from, 
424; and White's candidacy, 426; and 
- Abolitionists, 435, 445; and memorial 
to Marshall, 440; White's attack on 
campaign activity, 448, 453; cam- 
paigning in Tennessee, 453; illness, 
457; and Whitney, 458; dinner to 
celebrate expunging, 471; triumphs, 
471; and future dangers. Farewell 
Address, 472, 473; farewell reception, 
473; appearance, 473; health, 474; 
social attitude, 474; life at White 
House, 475-77; work routine, 477; 
and society of women, 478; at Van 
Buren's inauguration, acclaimed, 479; 
last day at Washington, 479; final 
conference, advice, hatred of Clay 
and Calhoun, 480; departure, 480. 
See also Election (1828, 1832). 

Jackson, Mrs. Andrew, campaign at- 
tacks on, 32, 83. 

Jackson, Sarah Y., and Jackson, 476. 

James, G. P. R., on Tyler, 80. 

Jefferson, Thomas, and Crawford, 109- 
on LivinjBstQU Code, 135,, 



Jefferson's Birthday, dinner (1830); 
Nullifiers' purpose, Jackson's Union 
toast, 100-03. 

Johnson, R. M., on Cabinet crisis over 
Mrs. Eaton, 123; and Kendall, 146; 
and overtures to Adams, 189; vice- 
presidential nomination, 431. 

Johnson, W. C, Barry incident, 373. 

Johnston, J. S., and Nullification, 279. 

Kane, E. K., and Bank, 211 n. 

Kemble, Fanny, in Washington, 16; 
Story's verses, 17 n. 

Kendall, Amos, pre-inaugural con- 
ferences, 39; on Barry, 62; and spoils 
system, 68, 73; Senate and appoint- 
ment, 84; and Van Buren and Cal- 
houn, 85; and rejection of Hill, 87; 
career and character, as editor, 144- 
48; 374; and Clay, 145, 146, 148; in 
campaign of 1828, 148; as office- 
seeker, 148; role in Kitchen Cabinet, 
149-51; and coming of Blair, 161; 
value of services, 169; political use of 
rejection of Van Buren, 182; and 
tariff issue, 188; and Clay's land policy, 
200; hostility to Bank, 203, 204, 218; 
and Bank veto, 219, 221; campaign 
review of Administration, 228-30; 
campaign methods, 242, 243; and 
removal of deposits, 291-93; and 
recess removal, 294; and Duane's 
attitude, 294, 295; sounding of State 
banks, 296, 297, 302; and Cabinet 
paper on deposits, 305; on Duane, 
308 n.; and Jackson's Protest, 339 
wisdom in Bank controversy, 366 
Postmaster-General, reforms, 374-76 
and exclusion of Abolitionist mail, 
435; and Whitney affair, 461. See also 
Kitchen Cabinet. 

Kent, James, and suffrage, 54; on Liv- 
ingston Code, 135; in campaign of 
1832, 236. 

Kentucky, Eaton and campaign of 1828, 
58; "Courts" contest, 163. 

Key, F. S., and Mrs. Forsyth, 25; and 
Berrien, 129; on disruption of Cabinet, 
130. 

Kinchy, . and ice cream, 26. 

King, J. P., patronage inquiry, 383, 384. 

King, W. R. and land report, 198; and 
Force Bill. 272; and expunging censure, 
369, 370; Poindexter investigation, 
382; and Fortifications Bill, 403; on 
politics in Abolitionist affairs, 445, 
446. 



INDEX 



499 



Kitchen Cabinet, importance, 144, 169; 
character and role of members: Ken- 
dall, 144-51; Lewis. 151-55; Hill, 
155-58; Blair, 161-69; and establish- 
ment of organ, 160, 161; campaign 
methods, 227; in campaign of 1832, 
242-45; and removal of deposits, 293; 
and deposits excitement, 330, 350; 
and expunging censure, 369; For- 
syth's attitude, 389 ; and French crisis, 
422; and Whitney, 458. See also 
members by name. 

Krudener, Baron de, and Mrs. Eaton, 
122. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, and Spoliation 
Claims, 391. 

Latrobe, B. H., Van Ness house, 8; 
Senate Chamber, 9. 

Lawrence, C. W., mayoral election, 355. 

Leavenworth, Henry, on Isaac Hill, 86. 

Lee, Henry, rejection by Senate, char- 
acter, 82. 

Lee, R. E., marriage, 8. 

Leigh, B. W., Virginia commissioner 
to Nullifiers, 284; as leader of Oppo- 
sition, 285; Bank leader, 319; political 
character, 321; and Webster's re- 
charter measure, 334; on Jackson's 
Protest, 340, 341; protested reelection 
to Senate, 363, 364; and French crisis, 
397 n.; and Fortifications Bill, 412; 
and instructions to expunge censure, 
441, 442; and Abolitionist petitions, 
444 n.; and Abolitionist mail, 445. 

Letcher, R. P., and compromise tariff, 
278-80, 282; and White, 425. 

Lewis, Delia, marriage, and Jackson, 
407. 

Lewis, W. B., and spoils system, 68; 
and Jackson-Calhoun break, 103-05; 
character, role in Kitchen Cabinet, 
151-55, 169; in election of 1828, 153; 
and Biddle, 155; and coming of Blair, 
162; and Jackson's candidacy for 
reelection, 172; and Bank, 205, 218; 
on McLane's Bank report, 209; and 
Bank veto, 219; campaign methods, 
242, 244; and Nullification, 275; and 
removal of deposits, 305, 306; attempt 
to exclude from floor of House, 324; 
and spring elections (1834), 354; and 
French crisis, 398; and McLean's 
candidacy, 423; and vice-presidential 
candidates (1835), 431. See also 
Kitchen Cabinet. 

Lexington, Ky., greeting of Jackson, 246. 



Lexington Observer, on Bank veto, 221. 

Linn, L. F., and expunging censure, 
465, 470. 

Livingston, Cora, as belle, 23, 406; 
marriage, and Jackson, 406, 478. 

Livingston, Edward, and Webster- 
Hayne debate, 93, 99; Crawford 
investigation, 108; selection as Sec- 
retary of State, 127; and Berrien, 129; 
career and character, 133-36; Code, 
135; Clay and confirmation, 182; and 
Bank issue, 207, 212, 215, 216; and 
Bank veto, 219; and Anti-Masons, 
237; Nullification Proclamation, 257- 
60; and Webster's attitude on Nulli- 
fication, 274; French mission, 287; and 
removal of deposits, 293; and Spolia- 
tion Claims, 386, 390, 391, 394, 395, 
398; leaves France, 406; ovation on 
return, 407 ; and message on crisis, 409. 

Livingston, Mrs. Edward, as social 
leader, 22; and Jackson, 478. 

Livingston Code, 135. 

Locofocos, and Van Buren, 452. 

Lodge, H. C, on Webster-Hayne debate, 
97; on Webster and Jackson, 277. 

Louis Philippe, and Spoliation Claims, 
390, 391. 

Louisiana, Bank and election (1834), 
356. 

McDufBe, George, and Ingham, 43; as 
Opposition leader, 177, 285; career 
and character, 191-93; tariff report 
and speech, 189, 193; and Bank issue, 
211; Bank recharter bill, 214, 215; 
and Nullification, 253; and Nullifi- 
cation Proclamation, 265; public 
harangues on deposits, 330; and 
deposits question in House, 343-45, 
348. 

McLane, Louis, and Treasury portfolio 
(1829), 42, 43; on Branch, 44; English 
mission, 50; and Attorney-General- 
ship, 125; selection as Secretary of the 
Treasury, 127, 128; West Indian trade 
negotiations, 178; tariff report, 189, 
193; public lands report, 196; Bank 
report, 208, 210; and Bank issue, 207, 
209, 210, 212, 216; transfer to State 
portfolio, 287; and removal of deposits, 
question of resignation, 290 r?., 292, 
293, 296. 297, 300, 303, 305, 309; 
resigns, 359. 

McLanc, Mrs. Louis, as social leader, 23; 
and Mrs. Eaton, 131; and Jackson, 
478. 



500 



INDEX 



McLean, John, treachery to Adams, 35; 
selection as Postmaster-General, 44; 
and proscriptions, transfer to Supreme 
Court, 49; and presidential candidacy, 
423, 432. 
Macomb, Alexander, and Kendall, 148. 
Madison, James, on Livingston Code. 

135; and tariff, 188. 
Maine, H. J. S., on Livingston Code, 

135. 
Mangum, W. P., and Bank, 211 n.; and 
Force Bill, 271; Poindexter investi- 
gation, 382; and French crisis, 396; 
electoral vote for, 433, 454. 
March, C. W., on Webster-Hayne 

debate, 97. 
Marcy, W. L., and tariff, 195; and Bank, 

318. 
Marryat, Frederick, on Washington, 

6; on Capital's social charm, 19. 
Marshall, John, and Fanny Kemble, 16; 
and Mrs. Livingston, 22; on Berrien, 
60; on Livingston Code, 135; and tariff, 
188; and Nullification Proclamation, 
260; and Taney, 440; Jackson and 
memorial, 440. 
Martineau, Harriet, on Washington, 2; 
on the avenues, 6; on Senate, 9; 
lionized, 13 ; on Washington life, 20; on 
statesmen in society, 24; on Kendall, 
150; and assassination conspiracy, 379. 
Mason, Jeremiah, Hill episode, 202. 
Massachusetts, in election of 1836, 433, 

454. 
Mechanics' Free Press, in campaign of 

1832, 248. 
"Messes" at Washington, 12. 
Mexico, relations ynth, 229. 
Michigan, Cass's services, 141. 
"Millennium of the minnows," 51, 130. 
Mississippi, election (1834), 364. 
Monroe, James, and Wirt and Jackson, 
38; and Jackson's Florida operations, 
78. 
Moore, Gabriel, and Abolitionist peti- 
tions, 444 n. 

National Bank, Jacksonian hostility, 
first message on, 171, 201-04; Hill- 
Mason episode, 202; attitude of 
Administration on, as issue (1831), 
204-09; and warnings, overtures to 
Jackson, 204; Clay forces recharter as 
issue, 207, 209; subsidized press, 207, 
228; Administration and McLane 
favorable report, 208, 210; problem of 
application for recharter, 209-12; 



Whig leaders force application, 212- 
14; recharter in Congress, 214, 215; 
congressional investigation, results, 
215, 216; veto expected, 217; Cabinet 
and veto, 217; preparation of veto 
message, 218; veto message as cam- 
paign appeal, its chawicter, 219-21, 
244; its reception, 221; excitement 
over question, 222; veto before Con- 
gress, speeches, 222-26; propaganda 
in campaign of 1832, 238-40; Demo- 
cratic campaign literature on, 243, 
244, 248. See also Removal of deposits. 
National Gazette, " Vindex" articles, 347; 
and French crisis, 396; on Fortifica- 
tions Bill, 411. 
National Intelligencer, in campaign of 
1828, 32; and Jackson retirement 
canard, 240; and removal of deposits, 
298; and French crisis, 394, 395, 397, 
411; on Fortifications Bill, 414. 
National Journal, in campaign of 1828, 

32; as Adams organ, 159. 
National Republican Party. See Whig 

Party. 
National Telegraph. See United States 

Telegraph. 
Navy Department. See Branch, John; 
Dickerson, Mahlon; Woodbury, Levi. 
Negro colonization, use of public landa 

proceeds, 198, 199. 
Nesselrode, Count, and Globe, 168. 
New England, Jackson's tour, 288-90. 
New Hampshire Patriot, under Hill, 
157; in campaign of 1832, 243, 248. 
249. See also Hill, Isaac. 
New Jersey, and Van Buren, 182: 

election (1834), 361. 
New York, Anti-Masons in, 234; 
coalition electoral ticket (1832), 236; 
and Nullification, 263, 264; election 
(1834), 361, 362; and Democratic 
vice-presidential nomination (1835), 
430, 431. 
New York City, Jackson parade, 245; 
Jackson in, 289; Bank meeting, 316; 
Bank harangues, 330; Bank question 
in municipal election (1834), 354-56; 
and French crisis, 407. 
New York Courier and Enquirer, Van 
Buren organ, and Jackson's reelection, 
172; attack on Bank, 203; goes over 
to Bank, 208, 228; and French crisis, 
394. See also Webb, J. W. 
New York Evening Post, and Bank, 239. 
Newspapers, Washington correspondents, 
I 16; Senate's rejection of nomination 



INDEX 



501 



of editors, 80; Jackson and power, 81 ; 
in campaign of 1828, 81 ; establishment 
of Jackson organ, Globe, 158-61; in 
Bank controversy, 207; in campaign 
of 1832, 228, 242; Bank controlled, 
305; in campaign of 1836, 451. 

Nicholas, R. C., and Abolitionist peti- 
tions, 444 n. 

Niles, J. M., and expunging censure, 464. 

Niles' Register, on Bank and depression, 
312, .341; on Whigs, 357. 

Noah, M. M., pre-inaugural conferences, 
39; rejection by Senate, career, 82; 
reappointment, confirmation, 86; and 
attack on Bank, 203. 

Nullification, andWebster-Hayne debate, 
97-99; Jefferson's Birthday dinner, 
Jackson's Union toast, 100-03; and 
reorganized Cabinet, 130; Nullifiers 
and support of Clay (1832), 231-33; 
denounced by Jacksonians, 233; Jack- 
son and anticipated, 252; growth of 
South Carolina sentiment, 253; Cal- 
houn's Exposition, 253; Calhoun's 
letter to Hamilton, 254; Unionists, 
Poinsett as Jackson's agent, 254, 255; 
Jackson's preparation to combat, 
255; Jackson's desire for peaceful 
settlement, 256-58, 68; annual mes- 
sage on, 257; preparation of Jackson's 
Proclamation, 257-59; his intention 
to punish, 259, 269, 273, 277, 279; 
character of Proclamation, 260, 263; 
Webster's attitude and speech, 260, 
273-77; Clay's political play, 261, 
264, 270, 280; attitude of Virginia, 
Clay's intrigue, Cass's letter, 261-63; 
Virginia commissioner to South Caro- 
lina, 262, 284; Van Buren and atti- 
tude of New York, 263, 264; South 
Carolina and Proclamation, 205; 
Calhoun's journey to Washington 
and senatorial oath, 266, 267; Admin- 
istration's tariff bill, 267; armed 
preparations, 268; Jackson's special 
message, reception, 268, 269; Force 
Bill, 269; Calhoun's resolutions, 269; 
debate in Senate, 270-72; Calhoun's 
speech, 274; union of Jackson's 
opponents, 277, 285; origin of com- 
promise tariff, 277-81; compromise 
bill, Clayton's amendments, 281-84; 
passage of Force Bill, 282; Ordinance 
rescinded, 284; and origin of Whigs, 
285; Georgia and, 388. , 

Octagon House, 8 n. ■ 



Offices. See Civil service. 
Ohio, in election of 1836, 431. 
O'Neal, Margaret. See Eaton, Mrs. J. H. 
Opera, in Washington, 28. 
Oregon, Jackson's attitude, 390, 480. 
Otis, H. G., on Clay's tariff speech, 188; 
denounces Abolitionists, 434. 

Pageot, Alphonse, American marriage 
and Spoliation Claims, 398, 407, 409. 

Parton, James, on Barry, 62. 

Patent Office, visitors and, 8. 

Patronage. See Civil service. 

Ponn, Shadrach, attacks on, 147. 

Pennsylvania, tariff and election of 1832, 
185, 188; and Bank as issue, 209; 
election of 1834, 361. 

Peyton, Balie, Whitney affair, 459; and 
expunging censure, 470. 

Philadelphia, Jackson in, 289; Bank 
harangues, 330; election riots, 363; 
and French crisis, 407. 

Philadelphia Standard, and Bank, 239. 

Pinckney, William, peculation, dismis- 
sal, 75 n. 

Pittsburgh Statesman, in campaign of 
1832, 247. 

Pleasants, J. H., and Nullifiers and Clay, 
232, 262. 

Poindexter, George, on Blair, 164; and 
Bank, 211 n., 217; and Force Bill, 
272, 276; as leader of Opposition, 285; 
public harangues on deposits, 330; on 
Jackson's Protest, 339; defeat. 365; 
and assassination conspiracy, 378, 379, 
382; career and character, relations 
with Jackson, 379-82; on evils of 
patronage, 384. 

Poinsett, J. R., and opposition to Nul- 
lification. 254, 255, 268, 269; later 
career, 285, 473. 

Political parties, beginning of basis in 
policies, 64, 65, 67. 

Polk, J. K., and White, 128; as Jackso- 
nianleader, 177;and Bank, 232; in de- 
bate on deposits, 344, 345; report on 
deposits, 348; and White's candidacy, 
426; Speakership contests, 429, 439. 

Poore, B. P., on Washington morals, 
19; on Berrien, 60; on Mrs. Eaton, 
117; on McDufBe, 192; on Jackson 
and Calhoun, 279. 

Porter, Alexander, and Abolitionist 
petitions, 444 n. 

Porter, P. B., and defeat (1828), 35. 

Post-Office Department, head made 
Cabinet oflScer, 44; corruption, in- 



502 



INDEX 



veatigation,' reorganization, 183, 369, 
371-74; Kendall's reforms, 374-76; 
exclusion of Abolitionist mail, 435, 445. 
See also Barry, W. T. 

Pozzo di Borgo, Count, and Spoliation 
Claims, 390. 

Prentice, G. D., and Shadrach Penn, 147. 

Prentiss, Samuel, as orator, 173; ap- 
pearance, 321. 

Preston, W. C, and Harriet Martineau, 
14; and Nullification, 253; on Nulli- 
fication Proclamation, 265; as leader 
of Opposition, 285; Bank leader, 319; 
character, 320; public harangues on 
deposits, 330; speech on censure 
332; confidence in Bank's victory 
332 ; and Post-Ofl!ice corruption, 369 
and expunging censure, 370, 463, 464 
and pictures for White House, 385 
and French crisis, 397 n. ; and Forti- 
fications Bill, 412; and Abolitionist 
petitions, 444 n.; and Abolitionist 

TTi nil 44 T 

Public 'debt, and tariff bill (1832), 185- 
87; Bank and extinguishment, 304; 
celebration of extinguishment, 384. 

Public lands, Benton's gradation policy, 
196; Clay's attitude, effect in West, 
196; Administration's distribution 
policy, 197; Clay's report, 197; recom- 
mittal, Benton's report, 198; pocket 
veto of Clay's bill, 286. 

Quincy, Josiah, and Cora Livingston, 
23, 406; on Calhoun, 91; on McDufiie, 
192. 



Ranee, M., and Spoliation Claims, 406. 

Randolph, John, "mess," 12; and Mrs. 
Livingston, 22; defeat by Tyler, 78, 
79; Crawford investigation, 108; on 
Hardin, 402. 

Red Fox, nickname for Van Buren, 40. 

Removal of deposits, origin of plan, 
289-92; Bank's relations with Oppo- 
sition, 291, 324; attitude of Van 
Buren and Cabinet, 292, 295, 299- 
301, 303, 305, 309; political basis of 
removal, 292, 294; question of recess 
removal, 293, 297; Duane's attitude, 
295, 303; Kendall's sounding of State 
banks, 296-98, 302; warnings to and 
by Bank, 297, 298; Taney as advocate 
of removal, 301, 306; determined 
upon, 302; Cabinet paper on reasons, 
303-05; Bank and extinguishment of 
public debt, 304; Biddlo's control of 



Bank, 305; Bank's subsidized pressj 
305; removal announced, 306; Duane'a 
recalcitrance and dismissal, 306-09; 
Bank memorial to Congress, 300; 
curtailment and depression to force 
recharter, 310-15; distress petitions, 
Jackson and, 315-17; business re- 
action against Bank, 317-19, 329, 
341, 352; controversy in Congress, 
leaders there, 319-21; Jackson's pa-, 
pers as appeal to public, 322; 
Senate and depository banks, 322; 
Senate and Cabinet paper, 323; Sen- 
ate's rejection of Government Bank 
directors, 324; legal basis of opposi- 
tion to removal, 325; resolution to 
censure Jackson, 325; public interest 
in senatorial debate, 326; distress pe- 
titions before Congress, 327, 328; 
counter-petitions, 328, 329; political 
stimulation of excitement, 330, 350; 
debate on censure, 330-32; confidence 
of Opposition, 332; Clay's selfish 
attitude, 332, 335, 366; Webster's 
compromise recharter measure, 333-^ 
35; Van Buren and Clay's histrionics, 
335-37; passage of censure, 337; 
Jackson's Protest, 338, 339; debate on 
Protest, 339-42; House measures and 
debate on removal, 342-49; attack on 
Hopkinson's Bank connection, 347; 
House committee to investigate Bank, 
frustration, 349, 350; Senate resolution 
ordering restoration of deposits, 350; 
Taney's special report on finances, 
publicity, 350-52; question in spring 
elections (1834), 354-57; in fall 
elections, 358, 361-67; Whig warnings 
against further contractions, 360; 
mistakes in Whig methods, 366, 367; 
revelations through Jackson's method 
of attack, 367; fall of Bank, 368; in- 
fluence and lesson of battle, 368; 
expunging censure, 368-41, 441-43, 
461-71. See also National Bank. 

Revenue, proposed reduction and dis- 
tribution, 383. 

Rhode Island, Bank and election (1834), 
356. 

Richmond Whig, on Jackson and Mar- 
shall, 440. See also Pleasants, J. H. 

Rigny, Comte de, and Spoliation Claims, 
394. 

Ringgold, Finch, on Calhoun and Jack- 
son, 103. 

Rip Raps, Jackson at, 296, 299. 

Ritchie, Thomas, on Calhoun, 89 n. ; and 



INDEX 



503 



Jackson organj 159; in campaign of 
1832, 240; and Nullification, 261, 262; 
on Duane, 288; and removal of de- 
posits, 299; on Whig Party, 358; in 
election of 1834, 363, 364; and vice- 
presidential candidates (1835), 430; 
on Senators and instructions to ex- 
punge, 442. 

Rives, J. C, and message on French 
crisis, 392. 

Rives, W. C, and Senate, 261; and 
Force Bill, 271; speech on censure, 
332 ; and vice-presidential nomination, 
430, 431; and expunging censure, 464. 

Roads, condition, to Washington, 1. 

Robertson, J., peculation,}dismissal, 75 n. 

Robinson, J. M., and Bank, 211 n. 

Rockingham Memorial, 94. 

Roenne, Baron von, as social leader, 
27. 

Rogerson, Asa, peculation, dismissal, 
75 n. 

Rucker, E., in Democratic Convention, 
430. 

"Ruckerize," origin of word, 430. 

Rush, Richard, and defeat (1828), 35; 
report on public lands, 196. 

St. John's Church, 8. 

St. Louis Republican, on Bank and 
depression, 341. 

Sargent, Nathan, on Washington streets, 
7; on McLean and justiceship, 49. 

Schaaf, Arthur, on Eaton-Ingham affair, 
132. 

Scott, Winfield, and Nullification, 255, 
273. 

Sectionalism, Tyler's attitude, 78; Cal- 
houn's efforts (1836), 443-48. See also 
Nullification. 

Seminole campaign, criticism of Jackson, 
78; and Jackson-Calhoun break, 103- 
06, 110-15. 

Senate, chamber, women visitors, 9. See 
also Congress. 

Sergeant, John, and Bank recharter 
application, 213; on union against 
Jackson, 277; and Webster's com- 
promise recharter measure, 334; and 
House investigation committee, 349. 

Serurier, Comte, and Spoliation Claims, 
recall, 395, 398, 405, 411. 

Seward, W. H., and NuUification, 264. 

Shepard, E. M., biography of Van Buren, 
53. 

Slavery, Tyler and territorial, 78. See 

^ also AbolitioDists. 



Slaves, in Washington, 11. 

Smith, Margaret B., on Harriet Mar- 
tineau in Washington, 14; on Mrs. 
Livingston, 22; on defeat of Adams, 
35, 36; on office-holders and Jackson, 
40; on inauguration of Jackson, 47, 48; 
on Webster-Hayne debate, 98; on Mrs. 
Eaton, 120, 130. 

Smith, Nathan, Poindexter investiga- 
tion, 382. 

Smith, Samuel, and Bank recharter as 
issue, 211. 

Society in Washington and celebrities, 
13-15; strenuousness, 20; fashions, 
20; brilliance, 21; leaders, 22-24; 
character, statesmen in, 24; gossip, 25; 
gallantry, 25; evening parties, dancing, 
25; diplomatists as leaders, 27; assem- 
bhes, 28; other amusements, 28; on 
Sunday, 29. 

South Carolina, in election of 1832, 251; 
of 1836, 454. See also Nullification. 

Southard, S. L., and defeat (1828), 35; 
on Jackson's Protest, 340; patronage 
inquiry, 383. 

Sparks, W. H., on Poindexter, 380. 

Sprague, Peleg, on Jackson's Protest, 
340; and French crisis, 396. 

State Department, museum, 8. See also 
Foreign relations; Forsyth, John; 
Livingston, Edward; McLane, Louis; 
Van Buren, Martin. 

Stevenson, Andrew, and Ban, recharter, 
214; rejection for English mission, 
352; in Baltimore Convention, 430. 

Stevenson, Mrs. Andrew, and Mra. 
Livingston, 22; as social leader, 23. 

Story, Joseph, and Harriet Martineau, 
14; and Fanny Kemble, verses, 16; on 
Mrs. Livingston, 22; in society, 24; 
on isolation of Adams, 46; on Calhoun, 
90 n. ; on Livingston Code, 135; on 
Nullification Proclamation, 260; and 
legal phase of removal of deposits, 325; 
on French crisis, 393. 

Streets, condition of Washington, 4, 5, 7. 

Suffrage, Van Buren's attitude, 54; ex- 
tension and campaign of 1832, 242. 

Sunday, in Washington, 29. 

Supreme Court, chamber, aspect, 10; 
appointment of McLean, 49; Jack- 
son's attitude in Bank veto, 220; 
Taney's appointment, 440. 

Surplus revenue, proposed distribution, 
383. 

Swanton, J. B., peculation, dismissal, 
76 o. 



OUI! 



li-N xjrjA. 



Swartwout, Samuel, as office-seeker, 69; 
on^Bank, 312. 

Tallmadge, N. P., and Abolitionist mail 
bill, 448. 

Tanej', R. B., selection as Attorney- 
General, 129; career and character, 
136-40; and War of 1812, 136; Aboli- 
tionist case, 138; hostility to Bank, 
210, 218; and Bank veto, 219; and 
removal of deposits, 292, 293, 294, 299, 
301, 306; and Cabinet paper on re- 
moval, 305; and dismissal of Duane, 
309; special report on finances, 350; 
rejected by Senate as Secretary of the 
Treasury, 352; confirmed as Chief 
Justice, 440; and Farewell Address, 
472. 

Tariff, Jackson's attitude, 171; Clay's 
plan (1832), 185-87; Clay's speech, 
187; Tyler's Southern warning, 188; 
McDuffie's report and speech, 189, 
193; Administration measure, 193; 
Adams's report and bill, 193; con- 
ference bill, 194, 195; failure as issue, 
195; of 1828 and 1832 and Nullifica- 
tion, 253; Administration bill (1833), 
267; origin of compromise bill, 277-81; 
provisions of compromise, Nullifiers 
and Clayton's amendments, 281-84. 

Tayloe, B. O., and W. H. Harrison, 
14 n. 

Tayloe, Mrs. B. O., and Harriet Mar- 
tineau, 14; as social leader, 24. 

Tayloe, John, residence, 8. 

Tazewell, L. W., "mess," 12; and State 
portfolio, 41; and War portfolio, 43; 
and English mission, 50; and rejection 
of Jackson's nominations, 82; joins 
Opposition, 115, 176; and White for 
Cabinet, 128; and Jackson organ, 159; 
and conference on tariff, 194; and legal 
basis of deposits controversy, 325. 

Telegraph. See United States Telegraph. 

Tennessee, and White's presidential 
candidacy, 426, 427; and Democratic 
Convention (1835), 430; in election of 
1836, Jackson and canvass, 433, 448, 
453, 455. 

Territories, Tyler and slavery in, 78. 

Texas, Jackson and, 480. 

Theater, in Washington, 16, 17. 

Thompson, George, Abolitionist crusade, 
434. 

Thornton, William, Octagon House, 8. 

Travel, conditions, to Washington, 1-3. 

Treasury Department. See Duane, W. J.; 



Ingham, S. D. ; McLane, Louis; Taneyi 
R. B.; Woodbury, Levi. 

Troy Sentinel, in campaign of 1832, 248. 

Turkey, treaty, 229. 

Tyler, John, on Irving, 15; career and 
character, 77-80, 441; origin and 
development of hostility to Jackson, 
78-80; sectionalist, 78; and Jackson's 
Cabinet, 79; appearance, 80; and 
rejection of Jackson's nominations, 
82, 83, 85; joins Opposition, 115, 176; 
on Cabinet reorganization, 127, 130; 
on Taney's official propriety, 140 n. ; 
and rejection of Van Buren, 180; and 
tariff, 188; caution in campaign of 
1832, 230; and Nullification, 261; and 
Force Bill, 270, 282; and compromise 
tariff, 278, 280, 281; as leader of 
Opposition, 285; and removal of de- 
posits, 329; and rejection of Stevenson, 
352; on attempt to assassinate Jack- 
son, 376; Poindexter investigation, 
382; vice-presidential candidacy, 433; 
and instructions to expunge censure, 
resignation, 441, 442. 

Union. See Nullification; Sectionalism. 

United States Telegraph, and spoils 
system, 65;'as Calhoun's organ, 85, 91; 
campaign extras (1832), 230, 239; 
rescue by Whigs, 277; and Aboli- 
tionism and sectionalism, 444, See 
also Green, Duff. 

Upham, Timothy, peculation, dismissal, 
75 n. 

Van Buren, John, campaign bets, 251. 

Van Buren, Martin, and Butler, 1, 310; 
and selection of]Jackson's Cabinet, 40, 
42, 45; presidential aspirations and 
Calhoun, 40, 85; selection for State 
portfolio, 40; and Hamilton, 41, 201; 
political career and character, 63-57; 
as lawyer, 53; and civil service, 54, 
68, 70, 74; in War of 1812, 54; 
and suffrage, 54; as leader against 
Adams's Administration, 65, 64; ap- 
pearance, 55; manner, 56; as orator, 
56; and Jackson-Calhoun break, bene- 
ficiary, 88, 110, 111, 114, 115, 179; and 
Jackson's Union toast, 100; resigna- 
tion from Cabinet, 116, 124; and Mrs. 
Eaton, political effect, 121, 122; and 
Louis McLane, 125, 359 n. ; future 
(1830), 127; and new Cabinet, 127- 
29; and Kendall, 149; on Lewis, 154; 
and organ for Jackson, 159-61 ; orgaa 



INDEX 



505 



172, 243; as Minister, 177; rejection 
by Senate, political effect, 178-82; 
West Indian trade negotiations, 178; 
and Bank, 205, 208; and Bank veto, 
218, 219; on Webster's Bank veto 
speech, 223; campaign canard on 
(1832) 240; and Nullification, 263, 264; 
on compromise tariff, 280 n.; in New 
England tour, 289; and removal of 
deposits, 290. 292-95, 297, 299-301, 
310; and Clay's histrionics over 
distress, 335-37; and French crisis, 
398; and Fortifications Bill, 404, 411 
and Cora Livingston, 406; Adams on 
438, 450; Jackson and succession, 423 
and vice-presidential candidates, 431 
and slavery issue, 435, 444, 446-48 
452; Crockett's biography, 436-38 
attitude during campaign, 438; and 
Bell, 439; Calhoun's attack, 449; and 
campaign queries, 452; electoral vote, 
454; and results of election, 455, 456; 
Cabinet, 473; at Jackson's last recep- 
tion, 473; Jackson at inaugural, 479. 

Van Ness, J. P., residence, 8; and re- 
ception of Jackson, 37. 

Vaughan, C. R., and Mrs. Eaton, 121 n., 
122. 

Verplanck, G. C, "mess," 13; tariff bill, 
267; mayoral campaign, 355. 

Vigne, G. T., on Arlington, 8n. ; on 
Supreme Court, 10 n. 

Villeraain, A. F., on Livingston Code, 
135. 

Virginia, in campaign of 1832, 231; and 
Nullification, 261-63, 284; and removal 
of deposits, 329; election of 1834, 356, 
363, 364; and Democratic vice-presi- 
dential nomination, 430, 431; Senators 
and instructions to expunge censure, 
441. 442. 

Walker, R. J., election to Senate, 365 
and Abolitionist petitions, 444 n. 

War Department. See Cass, Lewis 
Eaton, J. H. 

War of 1812, Van Buren's attitude, 54 
Calhoun's services, 89; Webster's at- 
titude, 94, 95; Taney's attitude, 136. 

Washington, Bushrod, and Mrs. Living- 
ston, 22. 

Washington in the thirties, condi- 
tion of travel to, 1; approach, 2 
hotels, 3; streets, coach hire, lighting 
4, 5, 7; lack of compactness, 5, 6 
avenues, 6; special residences, 7, 8 
public buildings, 8; Capitol, 8-11 



housing conditions," 11; servants, 
slaves, 11; cost of living, 12; boarding- 
houses, messes, 12; and celebrities, 
13-15; press letters from, 16; theater, 
16, 17;'dissipation, 18, 19; social charm, 
19; fashions, 20; society leaders, 21- 
25; evening parties, 25-27; foreign 
ministers in society, 27; assemblies, 
opera, 28; social character, 28; Sunday 
in, 29; unhealthfulness, 29; and elec- 
tion of Jackson, 31, 35. See also White 
House. 

Washington Globe, establishment aa 
Jackson organ, 160, 161, 164; daily, 
finances, 165; political power, 166- 
68; and foreign affairs, 168, 169; 
lead in campaign of 1832, 228, 242, 
248. See also Blair, F. P. 

Washington Theater, 16. 

Watkins, Tobias, peculation, dismissal, 
75. 

Webb, J. W., on Isaac Hill, 86; and 
Bank controversy, 208, 228; losses 
through Bank policy, 318; names 
Whig Party, 357. See also New York 
Courier and Enquirer. 

Webster, Daniel, and Harriet Martineau, 
14; and Mrs. Livingston, 22; in 
society, 24; on inauguration crowd 
(1829), 37; on Jackson as president- 
elect, 38; denunciation of Jackson's 
removals, 76; and Calhoun's candi- 
dacy, 90; Hayne debate as political, 
92, 93, 98; Union issue of debate, 93, 
97, 99, 103; political career and 
character, 94-96; and War of 1812, 
94, 95; as orator, 95; effect of Hayne's 
speech, 96, 97; reply, effect, 98; 
Crawford investigation, 108; and 
Clay's return to Senate, 171; and 
party leadership, 172, 173; as anti- 
Jackson leader, 176; and rejection of 
Van Buren, 178, 180; and tariff (1832), 
195; and Bank recharter as issue, 
210-12; and forcing of recharter 
application, 213; on veto message, 
222, 223; in campaign of 1832, 244; 
attitude on Nullification, and Jackson, 
260, 273-77, 288; and compromise 
tariff, 278, 280; and removal of de- 
posits, 309; advice to Bank, 310, 314; 
and Bank retainers, 324; and legal 
phase of removal, 325; and distress 
petitions, 327; Bank harangue, 330, 
355; and censure debate, 332; com- 
promise recharter measure, 333-35; 
on Jackson's Protest, 342; and spring 



506 



INDEX 



elections (1834), 354; on elections of 
1834, 365; and expunging censure, 
371, 469; patronage inquirj', 383; and 
Fortifications Bill, 403, 410, 412; and 
Adams, 414; presidential candidacy 
(1836), 432, 433, 452; Adams on 
candidacy, 438, 450; and confirmation 
of Taney, 441. 

Weed, Thurlow, and attacks on Mrs. 
Jackson, 33; and rejection of Van 
Buren, 181; as practical politician, 
227; and removal of deposits, 298; 
on elections of 1834 and Bank, 366, 
367. 

Welles, Gideon, pre-inaugural confer- 
ences, 39. 

West, and Clay's public lands policy, 
196; Democrats and (1835), 431. 

West Indies, American trade negoti- 
ations, 178, 229. 

Whig (National Republican) Party, 
need of leader, 176; and other elements 
of Opposition, 184; origin, antagonis- 
tic elements, 285, 357; assumes name, 
357. 

White, D. L., peculation, dismissal, 75 n. 

White, H. L., and Cabinet position, 127, 
128; and Calhoun and Webster- 
Hayne debate, 92, 93; as Jacksonian 
leader, 176; and tariff, 195; hostility 
to Bank, 204; on Bank veto, 222, 224; 
on tension in Bank issue, 222; and 
removal of deposits, 293, 334, 335; 
and expunging censure, 370; and 
Fortifications Bill, 403; drift from 
Jackson, 423; as logical anti-Van 
Buren candidate, 424, 425; Whigs 
and candidacy, 424, 432; Democratic 
efforts to suppress, 426; character, 
427; Tennessee and candidacy, 427; 
Blair's denunciation, 428; and slavery 
issue, 436; and Crockett's biography 
of Van Buren, 436; Adams on, 438, 
450; and Abolitionist petitions, 445; 
and Abolitionist mail bill, 448; attack 



in Senate on Jackson, 448; basis of 
candidacy, 449; organ, 451; on Jack- 
son's canvass in Tennessee, 453; 
electoral vote, 454, 455. 

White, Mrs. H. L., boarding-house, 12,* 
and husband's presidential candidacy, 
425. 

White House, Jackson's receptions, 47, 
473; pictures for, 385; Jackson's life 
in, 475-78. 

Whitney, R. M., affair, 458-61. 

Wilde, R. H., as Opposition leader, 177; 
tariff speech, 268; and Lewis, 324. 

Wilkins, William, and tariff bill, 194, 
195; and Bank, 211 n., 217; Force Bill, 
269, 270. 

Willis, N. P., on Washington, 5; in 
Washington society, 15. 

Wirt, William, and Mrs. Livingston, 22; 
and defeat (1828), 35; advances to 
Jackson, 38; and Jackson-Calhoun 
break, 111-13; Anti-Masonic can- 
didacy, and Clay, 234, 249, 303. 

Wise, H. A., on Jackson and distress 
petitions, 317; and Fortifications BilK 
404; and Adams's speech against 
Senate, 419; Whitney affair, 457-61; 
on expunging censure, 471. 

Wolf, George, and Bank, Senate resolu- 
tion on, 318, 329. 

Woodbury, Levi, "mess," 12; and 
Jackson (1829), 40; selection as 
Secretary of the Navy, 129; and 
Berrien, 129; and Bank, 210, 217; in 
New England tour, 289; and removal 
of deposits, 293; transfer to Treasury 
portfolio, 359. 

Woodbury, Mrs. Levi, as social leader, 
23. 

Wright, Silas, and removal of deposits, 
299; and Webster's recharter measure, 
335; Poindexter investigation, 382; 
and vice-presidential candidates 
(1835), 431; and Abolitionist mail bill, 
448; and expunging censure, 465. 



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